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KNIGHT LETTER

TAe Lewis Carroll Society of North America

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Spring 2018

Volume III Issue 1

Number 100

The Knight Letter is the official magazine of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America,
a literary society whose purpose is to encourage study and appreciation of the life, work,
times, and influence of Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), and is in affiliation
with the Fales Library, New York University.

It is published twice a year and is distributed free to all members.

Editorial correspondence should be sent to
the Editor in Chief at morgan@bookgenius.org.

SUBMISSIONS

Submissions for The Rectory Umbrella and Mischmasch should be sent to
morgan@bookgenius.org.

Submissions and suggestions for Serendipidity and Sic , Sic, Sic should be sent to
andrewogus@gmail.com.

Submissions and suggestions for All Must Have Prizes should be sent to
matt.crandall@gmail.com.

Submissions and suggestions for From Our Far-Flung Correspondents should be sent

farflungknigh t@ gmail. com.

Chris Morgan, Editor in Chief
Cindy Watter, Editor, Of Books and Things
James Welsch, Editor, From Our Far-Flung Correspondents
Foxxe Editorial Services, Copyeditor
Mark Burstein, Production Editor
Sarah Adams-Kiddy, Proofreader
Andrew H. Ogus, Designer

THE LEWIS CARROLL SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA

President:

Stephanie Lovett, president@lewiscarroll.org
Vice-President:

Linda Cassady, linda.cassady@gmail.com

Secretary:

Sandra Lee Parker, secretary@lewiscarroll.org
www.LewisCarroll.org

Annual membership dues are U.S. $35 (regular),

$50 (international), and $100 (sustaining).

Subscriptions, correspondence, and inquiries should be addressed to:

Sandra Lee Parker, LCSNA Secretary
PO Box 197

Annandale, Virginia 22003

On the cover: Hickory Horned Devil on top of mushrooms.
Photograph © 2018 Dr. Igor Siwanowicz (see page 19).

CONTENTS

-i&£m

TH6 R6CTORY UMBR6LLA

- m -

Lewis Carroll at the Doheny , or, “Hasten,

Otherworldly Alice!” 1

CHRIS MORGAN

The Knight Letter: One Hundred

and Counting 1 o

MARK BURSTEIN

Carroll’s Publishing History

with Macmillan: A Research Narrative 14

CLARE IMHOLTZ

Of the Mushroom 19

MARK BURSTEIN

“Once I Was a Real Turtle, ” Part I 23

MATTHEW DEMAKOS

MISCHMASCH

- m -

Leaves from the Deanery Garden —

Serendipity — Sic, Sic, Sic 40

Ravings from the Writing Desk 44

STEPHANIE LOVETT

All Must Have Prizes 46

MATT CRANDALL

Arcane Illustrators: fan Svankmajer 48

MARK BURSTEIN

In Memoriam: David H. Schaefer 50

AUGUSTA. IMHOLTZ, JR.

CARROLLIAN NOT0S

- m -

Mad World 52

DANIEL ROVER SINGER

USC Libraries 14 th Wonderland Award 53

LINDA CASSADY

The Straight Dope on the MMPI 54

Never Eschew Escher 54

Drive-by Laughter 54

Dutch Society’s Second Symposium 55

BAS SAVENIJE

Burning the Baker 55

GOETZ KLUGE

Run, Alice, Run 56

VICTOR FET

Alice in Orchidland 57

CHRIS MORGAN

Alice in Down-Underland 57

MATT CRANDALL

Mad Hatterpiller 5 8

OF BOOKS AND THINGS

-ns-

Pulp Friction 59

Jabberwalking 59

Caryl: Why Lewis Carroll Believed in Fairies 59

CINDY WATTER

Mrs. White Rabbit 60

ANDREW OGUS

The Fish Chronicles 60

MARK BURSTEIN

AW/LG illustrated by Gennady Kalinovski 61

ANDREW OGUS

One Fun Day with Lewis Carroll 61

ANDREW OGUS

Evertype 62

FROM OUR FAR-FLUNG
CORR0SPOND0NTS

-ns-

Art & Illustration—Articles & Academia —

Books — Events, Exhibits, & Places —

Internet & Technology—Movies & Television —
Music—Performing Arts—Things 63

Hector Rosenfeld & “Alice in Puzzleland” 66

CHRIS MORGAN

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elcome to the hundredth issue of the
Knight Letterl To mark this special event,
we offer this one-time oversized color is¬
sue as a gift to our members. We wish we could do this
for every issue, but we hope you’ll enjoy the offerings
herein, including an affectionate retrospective by Mark
Burstein, an active participant in the KL for decades,
and some thoughts from Stephanie Lovett. They look
back at its beginnings as a small newsletter, and de¬
scribe its growth and evolution to the present day.

It’s a major accomplishment for any periodical to
last for 100 issues. The KL began in 1974, just before
I became an editor at BYTE, an early personal-com¬
puting magazine. At the time, we were delighted to
make it to issue #10, let alone #100! All credit for the
KL s longevity goes to the countless LCSNA members
who have volunteered their talents over the years to
maintain our quality and relevance.

In this issue, we offer a colorful mushroom
theme with several intriguing caterpillars to admire.
Our spring meeting report offers a rich set of presen¬
tations about all things Carrollian, including Linda
Gray-Moin’s remarkable life-sized recreation of Mr.
Dodgson’s hearthside in his rooms at Christ Church,
complete with reproductions of the tiles on the
hearth and the paintings displayed across his mantle.

“Once I Was a Real Turtle,” by Matt Demakos, is
a revealing analysis of John Tenniel’s post-publication
drawings and tracings of his illustrations for the Alice
books. The images, held at Harvard University (the
Harcourt Amory Collection), the Morgan Library,
New York University (the Berol Collection), and sev¬
eral other collections, are intriguing. Why were they

created after the Alice books were published? Why are
some reversed and some not? Why do some have ad¬
ditional images on them? Matt sheds new light on the
topic through his recent research.

Also in this issue, Goetz Kluge makes the case
that a seventeenth-century engraving may have influ¬
enced Henry Holiday’s last illustration for The Hunt-
ing of the Snark. Goetz’s excellent blog about all things
Snark is at http://snrk.de/.

Earlier this year, we lost David Schaefer, a beloved
friend to the Society for over four decades. In this is¬
sue’s “In Memoriam,” August Imholtz, Jr., offers a
very personal look back at David’s remarkable life, his
accomplishments in technology, and his many contri¬
butions to the LCSNA.

CHRIS MORGAN

David, and Maxine Schaefer

THS RBCTORY UMBRSLLA

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LEWIS CARROLL AT THE DOHENY, OR^
’HASTEN, OTHERWORLDLY ALlCEf'

CHRIS MORGAN ^

CHRIS MORGAN

T he second half of our tide is an anagram of
the first: it inspired us to do likewise and
hasten to the University of Southern Califor¬
nia’s wonderful Doheny Library in Los Angeles for
our Spring meeting. (We have apparently caught Mr.
Carroll’s anagram fever. A second anagram is “World¬
ly Alice Hearthstone,” and a re-creation of Carroll’s
Oxford hearth was a particular highlight of our meet¬
ing. Coincidence?)

Our LA adventure began on Thursday, April 12,
with our semi-annual Schaefer Reading, this time
held at the Castelar Elementary School, a Mandarin
immersion school in a cheerful neighborhood not
far from Chinatown. USC very hospitably provided
a driver and a van for us. We were ushered into the
gym, and soon forty-two (!) lively third-graders filed
in. Our own Madison Hatta was the excellent mistress
of ceremonies, welcoming the students and telling
them the history of the Schaefer readings. There were
sixteen grown-ups in attendance—probably a record.
At the last minute, Daniel Singer strolled in, in full
Victorian fig, complete with a top hat that was over a
century old. Sartorially, he eclipsed us all.

This reading was a first for the Society; instead of
the customary adult performers, the children them¬
selves took turns reading Chapter 7, “A Mad Tea-
Party,” in its entirety. Some of the children had great
dramatic expression. (One little girl, who had prob¬

ably been told never to call anyone “stupid,” sponta¬
neously emended the text to “It’s the silliest tea-party
I ever was at in all my life!”) Then Andy Gu, a stu¬
dent at USC—with a double major of Philosophy and
Computer Science, of which Dodgson would certainly
have approved—read the chapter in Mandarin.

The Q ScA after the reading was, as always, fasci¬
nating and fun. Because the students had been given
the books ahead of the reading, there were many
questions about the illustrations, some of which were
answered with “You will find out when you read the
book.” They were curious about who this tall girl was
(the stretched-neck Alice), why the dormouse slept all
the time, why they were reading this chapter in partic¬
ular, what treacle was, how Carroll came up with the
idea, and why the cat looked terrifying. This last was
answered with a discussion of Tenniel’s style, and how
the cat was supposed to be funny. The children were
assured that Alice was never in any danger. We asked
Mr. Gu how the parodies translated, as in “Twinkle,
Twinkle Little Bat.” He replied that the translation,
instead, went into a discussion about the importance
of the poem “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” in Anglo-
American culture.

One little boy, dressed all in green, bounced up
and asked, in a mock-truculent manner, “Can we keep
these books, or ‘Heck, no!’?” We told him that the pur¬
pose of the visit was to present them with this book,

as Maxine and David Schaefer had always intended.
After the reading, several of the students came over
for a closer look at Cindy Watter’s sixty-year-old copy
of the Alice books, marveling that it was still in decent
condition. (She would have lectured them about tak¬
ing care of their own books, but Alice isn’t supposed
to have a moral.)

This was a poignant gathering for many of us, as
David Schaefer had recently died, but both Schaefers
would have been thrilled to see the enthusiasm with
which the books were received. In his honor and with
the full consent of his family, the event will from this
point on be called the “Maxine and David Schaefer
Memorial Reading.”

Later in the day, we were free to browse the G.
Edward Cassady, M.D., and Margaret Elizabeth Cas-
sady, R.N, Lewis Carroll Collection, and were treated
to a light reception at the Moreton Fig Outdoor Pa¬
tio, featuring many Alice-themed goodies, including
Pig Sc Pepper Old Fashioneds to slake our thirsts.

The next day, Friday, saw our gathering again tak¬
ing place in the Doheny. On our way up to the room,
we paused to admire two of Karen Mortillaro’s fabu¬
lous anamorphic bronze sculptures, part of a series
of twelve (one for each Wonderland chapter) she is
creating (KL 91:6). USC Libraries’ Associate Dean for
Programs and Planning Hugh McHarg and our presi¬
dent, Stephanie Lovett, welcomed us to the meeting,
themed “Wonderland as Place: World-Building and
Character-Making in the Carroll Universe.”

Then we were off to a brilliant beginning, a
performance of a truly delightful new musical, Mad
World, putting us in a very upbeat mood. Daniel Rover
Singer’s full review of it can be found on page 52.

Next, Arnold Hirshon made his second appear¬
ance as a speaker at an LCSNA meeting (he was fea¬
tured at the Alice 150 event). He is an associate vice
provost and the university librarian at Case Western
Reserve University in Cleveland, and has traveled
the world lecturing on libraries and library leader¬
ship, in addition to publishing many articles on those
subjects. In his 2015 talk he had proposed a digital
scholarship project, a database of Alice illustrations,
which he is still committed to. This time he gave us
“an early report in its beginning stages” in a talk en¬
titled “Beyond Tenniel, or Contrariwise: If It Wasn’t,
Is It Ain’t?”

It was an information-packed, fast-paced lecture
full of erudition and enthusiasm—and 150 Power¬
Point slides! Hirshon’s goal is to create a systematic
way to reveal the mind of the many illustrators of Car-
roll’s Alice books. He is creating a comprehensive cat¬
alog and database that will list all of the illustrations
that have appeared in any English-language book edi¬
tion of Wonderland and /or Looking-Glass published
anywhere in the world since 1865 (and hi-res images
of them all!!). Hirshon also plans to identify the first
appearance of a scene or character or of a significant
new detail. He believes Wonderland and Looking-Glass
are the perfect case studies to examine the minds of

Mad World

illustrators, because in both works any scene, sen¬
tence, phrase, character, or word is ripe for distinctive
visual representation.

Hirshon showed the results of a formula he de¬
vised to calculate the total number of illustrations
for all the books in the database: 90,967. He noted,
jokingly, “I’m willing to bet I’m wrong. The nice
thing about this crowd is that you’ll tell me.” He also
showed us a table of words that appear only once or
twice in Wonderland (among them, interestingly, is
“twice,” which appears twice).

He asked why any of this information should mat¬
ter. For “maniac” collectors it’s “Why should I get this?”
For illustrators , “What can I say creatively that will en¬
hance the existing visual landscape of this book and
please the reader?” The reader is curious about why,
with so many versions available, a particular book will
command attention.

Hirshon’s approach relies on several factors, in¬
cluding knowing the first time a scene, character, or
other feature has ever been illustrated. Also impor¬
tant is perceiving the highlighting of a text element
no one ever noticed or could visualize before the em¬
ployment of a distinctive artistic style, the use of a new
medium to express the work, or a medium used in a
different way. For all the “firsts” that illustrators seek,
the primary consideration is often fidelity to the text,
though he notes that illustrators also often ask “What
can I as an illustrator bring out from the text that no
one has ever brought before?”

He then discussed in fascinating detail a num¬
ber of editions that featured first-time illustrations of
scenes—or broad interpretations of the text—includ¬
ing W. H. Walker’s picture of Alice as serpent; Brins¬
ley Le Fanu’s illustration of the March Hare’s house,
with ears coming through the roof; K. M. Roberts’s
black-and-white drawing of Alice aiming to catch an
airborne baby; Charles Pears’s and Thomas Heath
Robinson’s firsts of the Hatter standing on the tea-
table and a platter soaring through the air at Alice;
Harry Rountree’s drawings of a flamingo with a steam-
punk aesthetic and a mother pigeon facing off with a
python; Bessie Pease Gutmann’s childlike, innocent
Alice; rarely seen drawings done by Harry Furniss;
and art by R. E. McEune.

Linda Gray-Moin in front
of her re-creation of
Dodgson’s hearth.

We next had a special treat when artist Linda Gray-
Moin revealed a project she had been working on for
some time: a life-size, faithful re-creation of the hearth-
side in the rooms at Christ Church that Dodgson occu¬
pied from 1868 until his death in 1898. Her talk was
titled “Fantastic Ducks and Blooming Maidens: A Visit
to Mr. Dodgson’s Hearthside.” Linda not only painted
remarkable likenesses of the William De Morgan tiles
surrounding the fireplace and the five oil paintings
hanging above it, she reconstructed the entire fire¬
place itself, complete with burning coal, andirons,
fender, and so forth.

But before we saw her consummate re-creation,
before we even listened to Linda describe how her
project came about, she dimmed the lights and con¬
jured up the scene that so many children must have
experienced, sitting before Lewis Carroll’s hearth,
flames flickering and animating the figures on the
tiles and the five young girls wreathed in blossoms
painted in oils above, while Carroll told them stories.
To further re-create the atmosphere, she played for us
the 1957 Cyril Ritchard recording of the beginning of
Alice’s adventures. As a child, she said, it was through
Ritchard’s recordings that she first fell in love with
Carroll’s wit and whimsy.

Then we stepped back to pinpoint the location of
Dodgson’s Christ Church suite of rooms, in the north¬
west corner of Tom Quad. The suite was fairly expen¬
sive at six guineas per term (about £800 or $1,100 dol¬
lars in today’s money), but Wonderlands as selling well
when he moved there in 1868. Linda had herself vis¬
ited this suite during the first International Lewis Car¬

roll Conference in the summer of 1989. She showed a
photo, probably taken shortly after Dodgson’s death,
which appears in the Dover reprint of Isa Bowman’s
memoir, titled Lewis Carroll as I Knew Him. (We should
note here that the photo in the Dover book correctly
shows Dodgson’s sitting room in 1868-98, although
it is incorrectly captioned as the room where Wonder¬
land was written. The original 1899 edition of Bow¬
man’s memoir, titled The Story of Lewis Carroll , has a
different photo, showing the room Dodgson actually
occupied when he wrote his classic.)

Linda had carefully examined the photo with a
powerful magnifying glass, which was especially im¬
portant for her re-creation of the De Morgan tiles
in the fireplace surround. The tiles were not special-
ordered by Carroll, but purchased from stock in
1887, probably because they echo characters from his
stories—fawn, dodo, lory, eaglet, Jabberwock (argu¬
ably) , beaver. Child friend Enid Stevens recalled, “As I
sat on Mr. Dodgson’s knee before the fire, he used to
make the creatures have long and very amusing con¬
versations between themselves.” Enid thought the lit¬
tle ducks on the tiles (De Morgan named them “Fan¬
tastic Ducks”) perhaps represented the Little Birds
in Sylvie and Bruno. Linda pointed out two characters
on the sailing ship on the upper tiles, who just might
be Dodgson in his top hat and Queen Alice with her
scepter sailing off to further adventures! After Dodg¬
son’s death, the De Morgan tiles remained in position
for a few years; later, some of the tiles were re-made
into a screen, which is now in the Senior Common
room at Christ Church.

Before discussing the five paintings of “blooming
maidens” that she painstakingly rendered, Linda pro¬
vided background on the appearances of the hearth
in Carroll’s works and the role of the visual arts in
his life. He frequently attended art exhibitions, knew
many artists personally, himself tried his hand at illus¬
tration throughout his life, and even gave Lucy Wal¬
ters, a neighbor’s daughter, funds so she could study
with Hubert von Herkomer. Dodgson was personally
acquainted (we believe) with all the artists represent¬
ed above his mantelpiece. All five paintings were pur¬
chased when he was in his early thirties.

Starting from the right side, the first (and most
well-known) painting is Lady with the Lilacs , painted in
1863 by Arthur Hughes. Dodgson paid a lot—£26/5,
around $4,000 in today’s money—for it. It is likely
that Tryphena Hughes, who often modeled for her
husband, was the sitter. Dodgson bought the paint¬
ing about the same time he was working on his Linder
Ground illustrations, and Tryphena’s luxurious wavy
hair may have influenced his drawings. Linda used a
color checker app to help her paint a color-accurate
copy. The original painting currently hangs in the Art
Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. (Dayna Nuhn gave
an excellent talk about it at our Fall 2014 meeting
[KL 93:1]; Christopher Tyler also discussed it at the
Spring 2017 one [XL 98:10]).

The second painting from the right, Minnie
Morton , is by Sophie Anderson. (In fact, two of the
mantle paintings are by Anderson, whose work Dodg¬
son much admired.) Anderson was born in France in
1823 and came to England in 1854. She exhibited fre¬
quently at the British Institution and the Royal Acade¬
my. It is unknown to whom the title refers, but a friend
of Dodgson’s suggested that the model was Florence
Braithwaite, a girl about the same age as Alice Liddell.
Dodgson purchased this in June 1864; he later gave it
to his sister Mary as a wedding gift, and had Anderson
make a copy for himself. Because neither painting’s
whereabouts are known, Linda had to “create” the
colors for her rendition, working from a photograph
taken by Dodgson, now at Princeton University; she
chose colors that echo those of the De Morgan tiles
and the general hearthside environment.

The second Anderson piece, on the other side
of the fireplace, is Girl with Lilacs , painted in 1865.
Dodgson saw it on a visit to the Anderson home and
was charmed by it. The model was Elizabeth Turnbull,
a beautiful child of twelve, who was employed by An¬
derson as a domestic helper and sitter. Dodgson was
inspired to make a photograph of her in the same at¬
titude as the painting two weeks later, in July 1865, but
the photograph has not been located. It’s interesting
that lilacs appear again as a theme.

The central, and largest, painting, Waiting to
Skate , is based on Dodgson’s photograph of Alexan¬

dra “Xie” Kitchin dressed as a Dane, a particular fa¬
vorite of his, and is by Alice Emily Donkin, a cousin
of Dodgson’s brother Wilfred’s wife. This is a case in
which Linda departed from faithful reproduction.
She finds Donkin’s painting too idealized and not a
good likeness, so she created her own interpretation
of the photograph of Xie. However, she had the bene¬
fit of suggestions that Dodgson wrote to Xie’s mother,
should she want to have the photograph tinted: “(1)
the eyes not quite so light; (2) the complexion not so
fair and colourless; (3) the lips not so bright a red; (4)
the hair not so golden, but brown, tipped with gold;
(5) the dress not quite so bright a blue; (6) the frock
warm brown, not black; (7) the corners of the mouth
more decidedly marked, so as to give more firmness.”

Our last painting, on the far left, shows a robed
figure standing in a three-quarters pose. The repro¬
duced photograph of it is too dark, small, and blurry
to positively identify it, but Linda wondered whether
it might be a painting of Saint Cecilia by Thomas
Heaphy that Dodgson owned, although in the cata¬
logue of his effects sold at auction, the painting is re¬
ferred to as “Infant St. Cecilia.” When casting about
for a subject that made sense for this spot over the
mantle, Linda came upon a photograph of Alice Lid¬
dell as St. Agnes by Julia Margaret Cameron. It was
the right pose and dress, and a subject dear to Dodg-
son’s heart, so she went with it, painting it in oil, just
adding a window over the figure’s shoulder.

After Linda’s talk, we were able to proceed di¬
rectly to lunch in the Intellectual Commons Room
and view the entire magnificent hearthside installa¬
tion in person. (At this point you may wish to look
at the photo on the facing page, where you can get
an idea of the beauty—and accuracy—of her work.)
It will return to Linda’s painting studio, where it will
serve as the backdrop to other Carrollian projects she
is hatching.

In the afternoon, the always delightful Heather
Simmons (whose Alice Is Everywhere podcast [XL 98:53]
is a weekly treat, along with her blog) hosted a “Pop-
Up Wonderland,” in which attendees were asked to
briefly (within 3 minutes and 42 seconds) show some
of our “prizes,” defined as Carrollian things that were
amusing or significant to us, not necessarily our most
rare or valuable. Some of the items were physically
present; others shown on screen.

Ricardo Jaramillo gave us a slideshow about Rizo,
his pet hedgehog; Jon Sakamoto, of the Walt Disney
Family Museum in San Francisco, brought some Mary
Blair postcards (they had an exhibition of her work
in 2014); Mark Burstein showed a bronze belt buckle
from the 1960s that had the Hatter raising a teacup
on one side and a working hashish pipe incorporat¬
ing the cup on the back, plus a plastic Disney figurine
of the White Rabbit and the Hatter engaged in rather

Photo by Mark Burstein

dubious behavior; Cindy Watter brought a Grosset &
Dunlap copy of Alice she had had since she was seven
and has had many prominent Carrollians autograph
(“If this book could talk, I’d probably be in jail”); An¬
gelica Carpenter brought two tea towels from Dares-
bury and a coffee cup from the superb Alice exhibit
in Fresno in 2004; Dan Singer had a plastic figurine
from Walt Disney World in Florida with the Hare, the
Dormouse, and the Hatter, who was, oddly enough,
playing a saxophone; Karen Mortillaro talked about
anamorphic art, reflection and illusion, and distort¬
ing mirrors, holding up one Dodgson had owned,
from the Cassady Collection; Amy Plummer exhibit¬
ed a one-off of a stained-glass Cheshire Cat her father
had made for her; August Imholtz brought a book by
Byron Sewell with a fork embedded in its binding and
told us he would have brought another, this one with
a nine-inch nail in it, but was afraid of transporting it
through the TSA; Joel Birenbaum showed us a small
sculpture of a passed-out Dormouse by Graham Pig-
go tt, an anonymous one of the White Knight and Alice —
with, inexplicably, a quote from Le Petit Prince (“On ne
voit bien qu’avec le coeur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les
yeux. ”)—and a “Rollin’ Down the Rabbit Hole” mari¬
juana tray; April James showed a Johnny Depp Hatter
clock from the movie that initially got her into the
Carrollian universe, and a journal of poetry by her al¬
ter ego, Madison Hatta; Robert Watkins, a math pro¬
fessor at Reiser University in Florida, showed us some
slides of his “Roots of Postmodernism” class involv¬
ing Alice; Stephanie Lovett had Twelve Carroll Scholars
Read Alice , an LCSJapan product from 1999 contain¬
ing two cassettes and a booklet, and also showed us
Mahendra Singh’s fabulous graphic-novel-style Snark ;
and Linda Cassady brought some postcards from the

White Knight and Alice from the Birenbaum Collection

Martzi Campos

Wonderland Awards, which she kindly distributed to
attendees.

Next, we saw a presentation of the 2015 first-place
Wonderland award winner, “ Curiouser and Curiouser.
An Interactive Storybook and Experimental Game-
play Experience.” Martzi Campos, who developed the
project along with Yu ting Su, spoke about and dem¬
onstrated this combination pop-up book and interac¬
tive computer experience, connected to a laptop by
a USB cable. In 2014, she and her teammate in the
Master of Fine Arts program in interactive media and
games both wished to combine physical computing
(microcontrollers, buttons, sensors, etc.) and their
love of books to create a Wonderland- themed pop-up
book with an interactive computer game. They were
amazed and inspired by the Cassady collection, as
well as previous entries to the competition, and were
surprised to learn that Carroll himself was a game de¬
signer. Months of hard work, including scavenging
parts from interactive greeting cards, enabled them
to develop a large, sturdily constructed, handmade
pop-up book.

Elements of Carroll’s story are featured in both
the hand-drawn art of the pop-up book and the com¬
puter animation, which interacts with the electron¬
ics embedded in the book. As the book opens to the
Hall of Doors, pop-ups appear and narration begins
on the computer, explaining the scene and giving in¬
structions, with hints encouraging exploration on the
page or screen. As you press on the drink me bottle
or eat me cake in the book, Alice grows or shrinks on
the computer screen to the appropriate size for the

Kerim Yasar, Satoko Shimazaki, & Rebecca Corbett

several different doors available on the screen. Be¬
hind each door is a scene from one of the chapters;
for example, when you press on the key in the book,
music plays as the doors open to show “Pig and Pep¬
per,” with the baby turning into a pig. The smallest
door leads to the next page—the Caterpillar.

Just as Carroll sometimes wanted to explain some
math to a young child at a dinner party, the Cater¬
pillar wishes to do the same, in a fun way. This page
integrates the game play into the book rather than
presenting it on the screen. As you pull on tabs on
the mushroom in the book, Alice’s neck stretches or
shrinks on the screen. But in the book you can also
pull on Alice’s head to stretch her paper neck. Sets
of tangrams (a puzzle consisting of flat geometric
shapes that are put together to form objects) are in
a removable envelope addressed to Alice’s feet. The
tangrams are assembled while on-screen characters
prompt with different-sized rabbits (what else?!) for
each set of tangrams.

The last page is a finger-controlled croquet game
that uses a ring on your finger to flick the hedgehog in
the book through wickets on the screen and to scroll
past several characters who speak and comment, until
Alice declares, ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!”
and game play ends. A tiny paper book inside the
pop-up book explains the rules of the game, ensuring
that both written word and computer animation are
used to engage the player.

After being chosen for the Wonderland award,
Ms. Campos and Ms. Su were invited to present
their project at the Experimental Game Play Work¬
shop, the Game Developer Conference, and the
Electronic Entertainment Expo. Ms. Campos ex¬
pressed her appreciation for helping them become
game designers.

After a short break, Rebecca Corbett, Japanese
Studies librarian at USC, led a discussion called “On
Translating Whimsy and Nonsense in East Asian Lan¬
guages and Cultures,” featuring panelists Kerim Yasar

and Satoko Shimazaki, both professors of East Asian
Languages and Cultures at USC.

The panelists began by introducing themselves.
Satoko’s research focuses on all-male Kabuki theater
and also on female ghost plays, some of which incor¬
porate themes similar to those in Alice. She teaches
early modern and contemporary Japanese literature
to undergraduates, and she finds that Alice is a key
figure for different Japanese cultural groups.

Kerim, who taught English in Japan, has a music
background that evolved into his studies of Japanese
literature, media, film, and sound technology. Cur¬
rently working on a book about Japanese cinema, he
has translated many novels and subtitles for movies.
He feels that Alice resonates deeply with Japanese cul¬
tural interests.

Asked her impression of Japanese components
in the Cassady collection, Satoko said that she was
amazed to see so many artists, translators, and others
interested in Alice. Alice offers food for artistic and
literary interpretation, she noted. Kerim said he was
surprised notjust by the sheer number of translations,
but also by their wide range. He mentioned manga,
kamishibai (paper card-based street theater, popular
until the advent of television), video games, animated
works, and almost any kind of media. Rebecca added
shadow puppets, stickers, and the Gothic Lolita look
inspired by Alice.

Interest in Alice started early, Satoko said, when
Japan opened to foreigners in 1868. Visitors brought
Alice books, which were translated. These proved en¬
tertaining for both children and intellectuals. In the
1970s, Japanese Alice translations filled a need for
readers looking for something interesting and dark.
Alice is a metaphor, she thinks. An artist may see her¬
self as a girl in Alice and better understand herself.
She suggested that Yayoi Kusama’s infinity mirror
rooms at the Broad Museum of Contemporary Art
in Los Angeles may let viewers see both infinity and
Wonderland.

Kerim thinks the Japanese like Alice for its play¬
ful qualities. The 1951 Disney animated film marked
a turning point, when translations began to increase
dramatically, resulting today in at least 425 different
translations of both Alice books, the most in any lan¬
guage. In 1951, when Japan was still under U.S. oc¬
cupation, Alice was perceived as ambiguously Anglo-
American. Disney animation had been popular in
Japan before the war, but its Alice in Wonderland movie
spurred on the popularity of the Alice books, part of a
massive influx of American culture. Kerim mentioned
the Japanese tradition of monsters called yokai, which
resemble Lewis Carroll’s magical beings. And he
thinks that Alice is popular in Japan because cuteness
(kawaii) is popular there, especially cute little girls.

Satoko noted that at the turn of the twentieth
century, Alice was published in Japanese girls’ maga¬
zines. At that time girls attended girls-only schools,
where they felt free. Boyfriends were not an issue, as
the magazines selected “safe” stories to publish. (Ker¬
im noted that early translations played down Alice’s
willfulness.) In the 1970s, manga for children became
popular. One theory is that older women, now good
wives and wise mothers, like to read about their lost
girl culture.

Kerim described one translation begun by
Akutagawa Ryunosuke, a well-known author who
killed himself while writing it; his editor finished it.
Kerim observed that wordplay is very hard to trans¬
late. It depends on similar-sounding words with mul¬
tiple meanings, but secondary and tertiary meanings
don’t carry across languages. Translators may try to
render “mock turtle” as “imitation” or “fake” turtle,
but a subtler effort might use the term ju , meaning
“in the style of’ the sea turtle. This translation makes
an allusion to the Yahoo in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s
Travels , a connection that might be recognized by an
erudite Japanese reader (but not by a Yahoo). Trans¬
lators, he explained, must use the resources of the
language they are transforming the work into.

Early Alice translations created an educational
narrative to teach Japanese children about English
culture. Some early versions replaced chess with the
more familiar Japanese game of shogi, but later trans¬
lations kept chess in the story to teach people about
Western ways. Satoko said that early translations tar¬
geted children, leaving out wordplay. Later transla¬
tions brought in wordplay and sophistication.

Nonsense, Kerim added, is easier to translate
than wordplay, because the effort is in preserving the
flavor of the original.

When it came time for questions from the audi¬
ence, people discussed the Japanese culture of cuteness.
Mark Burstein pointed out that “Hello Kitty” was named
for Alice’s cat in Through the Looking-Glass (KL 95:22),
which was a pleasant surprise to Ms. Satoko, who taught

classes on both of them! Satoko advised that in Japan
there is a chain of stores called “Alice on Wednesday,”
which marries cuteness, Alice, and good shopping.

We then moseyed down to a different room in
the Special Collections wing to browse a special ex¬
hibit of items from the Cassady collection, curated by
Rebecca Corbett, Kerim Yasar, Satako Shimazaki, and
Dr. George Cassady. Certainly the most predominant
thing in the room was an enormous oil portrait, per¬
haps seven feet tall, based on the famous Julia Marga¬
ret Cameron photo of Alice Liddell as Pomona, sur¬
rounded by Tenniel images from the books. Specific
tables were devoted to “Whimsy and Nonsense in East
Asian Languages and Cultures,” “Carroll’s Library,”
and “Carroll Illustrators.” “Whimsy” helped to inform
the talk we had just heard by showing us examples that
had been discussed; “Library” contained books CLD
had owned, from an Insogni Pastorali from 1596 up to
nineteenth-century works, including some of his own
writings and pamphlets; and “Illustrators” showcased
Carroll’s wide range of interpreters, including a copy
of a rare Argentine boxed edition (25 copies) with il¬
lustrations by Alicia Scavino and a boxed Snark hand¬
written and illustrated with colored drypoint etchings
by Yuri Shtapakov, which had come out in an edition
of two! George also had written and generously print¬
ed up full-color spiral-bound catalogs of the latter two
categories, which were there for the taking.

Next came the 2018 Wonderland Award ceremo¬
ny, which Linda Cassady reports about on page 53.
Following that was another bountiful reception in the
courtyard.

On Saturday morning, we were again welcomed
to the Doheny Library, with a light breakfast. Anne-
Marie Maxwell then led us on a curator’s tour of the
exhibition of some of the previous Wonderland Award
entrants and winners. Titled Wonderlands capes and
located on the ground floor of the library in several
glass cases built into the lobby and hallway walls, this
show was a marvel of variety and, well, wonder. High¬
lights included an elaborate—and wearable—dress, a
Carrollian Last Supper (opposite), an exquisite scrap¬
book journal, a large mural, and a piece of book art
carved out of a new copy of Alice. One favorite was a
pair of paintings of Alice inspired by Victorian enam¬
eled miniatures, captivating in their beauty and in
their inherent questioning of whether they portray
the same girl—and if so, which is the real one and
which the mirror-world fairy? Our group appreciated
Ms. Maxwell’s expertise as we made our way through
the explosion of creativity, not only from the point
of view of artistic interpretation of Carrollian sources,
but also from that of a collector’s/archivist’s interest
in the storage and display of unusual materials.

The final presentation of our multi-day program
was an illustrated and animated, if you will pardon

Photo by Mark Burstein

Anne-Marie Maxwell (L) &
Lisa Mann (R)

the pun, talk by Lisa Mann, an associate professor at
the USC School of Cinematic Arts, and Anne-Marie
Maxwell of the Planning and Communications De¬
partment of the Doheny Library: “Lewis Carroll in
the Animation and Media-Based Installation Curric¬
ulum.” The term “installation art,” according to the
Tate Gallery’s art glossary, “is used to describe large-
scale, mixed-media constructions, often designed for
a specific place or for a temporary period of time.”
The art medium in question at USC, however, was
animation, which is defined as “the rapid display of
sequences of static imagery in such a way as to create
the illusion of movement,” which for many people,
especially those of an older generation, means car¬
toons. Animation is made up of 24 frames per second,
amounting to a lot of images for even a short film.

The speakers first showed a swirling Alice ani¬
mation sequence that seemed somewhat reminis¬
cent of Felix the Cat (whose giant neon image is
positioned above a car dealership a few blocks up
on South Figueroa Street). There followed a quasi¬
psychedelic twirling Alice inspired by Salvador Dali,
a work which was later submitted to the cutting-edge
Ottawa Animation Festival. Wonderland Unbound was
the title of a two-hour-long nighttime projection map¬
ping of scenes from Wonderland onto the fagade of

the Doheny Library. The shots we saw were impressive
indeed and surely more so in the real event. A short
presentation featuring the Jabberwock, Alice in the
pool of tears, and much more is available at www.you
tube. com / watch ?v=G8QGwLGAl-s.

Going inside the magnificent Doheny Library on
screen, we saw a series of students’ cleverly projected
installations, ranging from butterflies flying on the
stairwell pursued by grasping hands and a prowling
cat, through animated open card catalog drawers and
Alice figures digitally inserted in wall niches, to a Jab¬
berwock 3D laser-cut sculpture. The most wonderful
and most Carrollian installation was surely the ani¬
mated water swirling around in a pool of tears in what
had been a dry and disabled drinking fountain, cre¬
ated by Sara Fenton, a graduate student at the USC
School of Cinematic Arts, which won the first prize in
the 2016 competition. Certainly all of the animation
makers seemed deserving of a prize, if even only an
elegant thimble.

Our thanks to the LCSNA members who generously con¬
tributed to this report: Mark Burstein, Angelica Carpenter,
Clare Imholtz, August A. Imholtz,Jr., Stephanie Lovett,
Robert Stek, and Cindy Waiter.

Carroll and Friends by
Juliet Devette, 2015 Won¬
derland Awards, on display
at USC

The Knight Letter: One Hundred and Counting

MARK BURSTEIN

hat’s an organization without a news¬
letter? The first issue of the Knight Let¬
ter , dated August 1974, appeared eight
months after our fabled inaugural meeting in Princ¬
eton. It was edited by the president, Stan Marx, and
consisted of three photocopied text pages (on or-
ange-ish paper), beginning with a credo:

The first issue of every publication is launched
with a combination of innocence, hope, daring
and determination. To explain each of these
sensations would take
more space than this
issue. Sufficient to
say—we would like
The Knight Letter to be
an expression of our
membership, since its
purpose is to inform,
and no editor has
the capacity to know
everything that’s hap¬
pening in the Carrol-
lian world. What fol¬
lows—and will follow,
in future issues—is
a compilation from
many of our members,
of events, transactions
and reports that touch
on our mutual interest.

There were tidbits on new
Alice items for sale, reviews
(books, a rock opera), an
obituary (Alfred Berol),
notes on conferences and
lectures, and a “trading
post.” The seed was planted.

Our second issue featured the first images. The
fourth issue was mistakenly called “#3.” These early
efforts, usually four or six pages, were certainly find¬
ing their way, mixing short articles with items and
reviews, sometimes typewritten, sometimes typeset.
Some were grouped together under headings such as
“The Printed Page,” “Shopping Guide,” “Carrollian

Computing,” and the like. Number 7 had the first
actual report on a Society meeting, which thereafter
became a tradition.

Number 27 was a watershed issue that saw several
new developments: the first issue edited by someone
(Stan Marx) other than the serving president (Ed¬
ward Guiliano), and the first to be typeset and de¬
signed in columns. Edward writes:

From the start, Stan and I managed a number of
the Society undertakings as we could easily meet
in person as I worked a mile
from where he lived. A little
newsletter was an important
communication to keep
people feeling part of the
organization. With the
help of a small inner circle,
Stan gathered the informa¬
tion and got it into print
for Maxine to distribute.

Stan’s profession was
advertising, so he clearly
knew printers and han¬
dled the early graphics
for the society. The de¬
sign and typesetting were
his responsibility, which
he outsourced. A small
group of us did some re¬
view and editing before
it went to print. But in
those days, unlike today,
it was a modest publica¬
tion and just something
to reach those members
who could not attend
meetings or wanted cur¬
rent Carroll and Alice news. Over time, the
list of contributors grew.

Stan probably went to a printer or even
a copy shop at that time for a style update.

And that was the period when everyone was
now using desktop publishing software. But
to be fair all around, drafts of the KL were

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routinely shared with members of the execu¬
tive committee, and everyone then and now
seemed content with the state of the KL.

Number 27 also printed the first comic strip, and in¬
augurated two columns that continue to this day: “Of
Books and Things” and “From Our Far-Flung Corre¬
spondents.” It had the first of a series of member pro¬
files (which continued through #39), and contained
an image (possibly from Punch) of a blind man behind
a large book that proclaimed the date of our next
meeting; the blind man was replaced by the White
Rabbit as Herald beginning in #36. Number 35 had
the first “Carrollian Notes” column.

Charlie Lovett writes:

I took over from Stan Marx when I became pres¬
ident, beginning with #36 in the winter of 1991.
Stan had done a great job with a professional
designer and typesetter giving the KL a better
look, and I copied this appearance on desktop
publishing software, PageMaker, thus saving us
quite a bit of money. I instituted an editorial in
#37 and expanded the
format to eight pages,
giving us space for some
longer articles such as
a lengthy obituary of
Eva Le Gallienne and
an article on Foreign
Alices. Issue 42 included
a humorous insert under
the banner “The Car¬
rollian Enquirer,” which
poked fun at some
of our good-natured
members as we paid
tribute to CLD’s favorite
number. My final issue
(#48, Autumn 1994)
coincided with the end
of my term as president
and included accounts of
some of the exhibits and
activities associated with
the Second International
Lewis Carroll Confer¬
ence at Wake Forest
University in Winston-
Salem, North Carolina.

At that conference, I was asked by August Imholtz
on behalf of the board if I would take over the reins
of the Knight Letter. I am not sure exactly why—I had
only edited one book and had a few years’ experience
on small newsletters: Ylem: Artists Using Technology and

The Herald for the West Coast Chapter of our Society
(1979-87)—but I did as best I could, and it has cer¬
tainly taught me a useful skill, one that I have turned
into a second career, and for which I will be forever
grateful. With the resignation of Janet Jurist as pro¬
gram director, it was felt that the presidential duties,
which henceforth would incorporate meeting plan¬
ning, would be more than enough without having to
produce the KL as well.

I put #49 together, again using PageMaker. Num¬
ber 50 introduced a quotation section called “Seren¬
dipity.” Number 51 was the first time the KL had gone
over 8 pages, this one weighing in at 12, and it initiat¬
ed the first letters to the editor column, “Leaves from
the Deanery Garden,” and the presidential “Ravings
from the Writing Desk of_.”

The first pictorial cover was for #54, a fine scratch-
board portrait of the Frog Footman by Leslie Allen,
who had contributed four other drawings to previous
KL s. Number 55 (16 pages), also featuring a cover by
Leslie, saw the first publication in English of an essay
on Carroll by Jorge Luis Borges. The page count con¬
tinued to climb in #56 (24 pages), a trend that con¬
tinues to our 52-to-60-page
issues today. Number 61 was
devoted to the first publica¬
tion of Carroll’s marionette
play La Guida di Bragia , il¬
lustrated by Jonathan Dixon.
Number 63 was accompa¬
nied by the first issue of The
TumTum Tree , edited by the
eleven-year-old Mickey Salins
(David and Maxine Schae¬
fer’s grandson) and aimed
at juvenile readers. He con¬
tinued editing it (his sister,
Lena, soon joined him in this
capacity) through #74.

In #66, I pleaded for
help, due to the imminent
arrival of the Hare Appar¬
ent, my son Martin, saying I
was doing my best to avoid
the “Burnand antimetabole”
(Francis Burnand [1836-
1917] was the first editor of
Punch to be knighted; I was
not eager to become the first
editor of the Knight Letter to be punched). Of course,
each issue had many contributors, writers, and the oc¬
casional illustrator, but I wanted a staff.

One fateful day in 2003, at an antiquarian book
fair, I ran into my old friend Andrew Ogus, a book
designer by trade and one of the original members of
the West Coast Chapter of our Society. He expressed

interest in designing the Knight Letter , and his kind of¬
fer was accepted. Working in close editorial collabora¬
tion with Matt Demakos, many of whose ideas these
were, we implemented many changes in #71, which we
also proclaimed Volume II Issue 1. First, it was “cleft in
twain,” with longer, substantive articles constituting a
section called “The Rectory Umbrella” and a miscella¬
nea called “Misch-Masch,” both named after Carroll’s
family magazines. We also inaugurated a table of con¬
tents, a copyright/indicia page, and the basic design
template that survives to this day. It was “signed” on
the back cover by a backwards-facing rabbit; later edi¬
tors received their own “signatures.” All we were miss¬
ing to make it a “real” publication was an ISSN, which
we got with #72. Furthermore, we decided to stabilize
on two issues per year, Spring and Fall, corresponding
to our meeting schedule. Andrew’s Victorian sensibili¬
ties, typefaces, wit, design talents, and one hundred
year run of Punch from which he gets appropriate spot
art have made all the differ¬
ence.

Beginning with #74,
other members have served
as editors of departments
or sections, or as associate
editors: Sarah Adams-Kiddy,

Ann Buki, Patricia Colacino,

Matthew Demakos, Rachel
Eley, August Imholtz, Clare
Imholtz, Ray Kiddy, James
Welsch, and Cindy Watter.

Foxxe Editorial Services has
provided copyediting since
#68. Desne Ahlers served
as proofreader for issues
#74-78, which Sarah Adams-
Kiddy has done since.

Martin Gardner’s anno¬
tations subsequent to those
in the “Definitive Edition”
of The Annotated Alice ap¬
peared in #s 75 and 76.

When my work/life
equilibrium became a bit
too unbalanced with the
arrival of yet another new
family member (Sonja), Andrew Sellon (then also
LCSNA president) took over as editor-in-chief with
#78 (his signature was the Bellman’s bell), working in
close collaboration with Clare (and occasionally Au¬
gust) Imholtz, as editors of “The Rectory Umbrella,”
and Sarah Adams, as editor of “MischMasch.” Andrew
renamed the editorial “The Bellman’s Speech” and
initiated three new columns: “All Must Have Prizes”
(collectibles), written by Joel Birenbaum, “Jabbering
and Jam” (notes from our secretary), and “Notes and

Queries.” These last two were attempts to bring in
more information about members and greater reader
participation (and should be revived!).

Andrew and team made a push to have more
speakers from LCSNA meetings (such as Nancy Wil¬
lard, Oleg Lipchenko, and Amirouche Moktefi) turn
their talks into KL articles, and to include longer and
more substantive book reviews. They also solicited ar¬
ticles from “outside” experts, such as bibliographer
Cary Sternick on A1 temus editions and classicist Judy
Hallett, who translated five stanzas of “The Mad Gar¬
dener’s Song” into Latin. August Imholtz continued
his tradition of providing most of the meeting reports
during these years.

A notice appeared in #82: “The Editors of the
Knight Letter are pleased to announce that, beginning
with this issue, all URLs (links) in ‘Far-Flung,’ which
up to now have been printed, are now online and
clickable!” They were originally in a separate list on a
website (delicious.com) un¬
til #87, when they became
available through our blog
(Sarah’s idea).

I again took over the
reins, briefly, in #83 whilst
Sarah Adams-Kiddy was
ramping up. It is an issue I
am particularly pleased with,
as it introduced the first
known portrait of Carroll’s
beloved mother, Fanny, and
a companion portrait, also
hitherto unknown, of his
Aunt Lucy.

Sarah edited #84 and
85, signing with a Rackham
rendering of the Cheshire
Cat’s smile. In #84, members
commented and opined (oh
boy, did they opine!) on var¬
ious aspects of the recently
released Tim Burton movie.
In #85, we had our first col¬
or pages, necessitated by the
article “Am I Blue?” about
the color of Alice’s dress.

The wonderfully talented illustrator Mahendra
Singh then took over #86, Sarah having her hands
full with twin babies. Although it was tough going for
him (his wife intensely dislikes Carroll, so we had to
correspond under the auspices of a faux “Oscar Wilde
Society”), he did a splendid job, even if he says his era
should be dubbed “The Age of Chaos.” His signature
was a dormouse falling into a teapot.

In #86 we announced that through the kindness
of The Internet Archive, all Knight Letters past, pres-

ent, and future were being digitized and are avail¬
able online (archive.org/details/knightletters). We
update this annually with two issues; only member/
subscribers have the latest one. Number 88 again had
a color section, celebrating the 150 th anniversary of a
certain boat trip up the Isis. An article on the “Guin¬
ness Alice” and a cartoon by Roger Langridge were
also in color, in #91.

Number 92 began a new recurring column, then
called “Forgotten Illustrators,” now “Arcane Illustra¬
tors.” Number 95 celebrated Alice 150 (and had its
own “signature,” created by Adriana Peliano, reflect¬
ing the collaboration between Mahendra and myself
on editorial duties for that issue).

The ever-delightful Chris Morgan, erstwhile edi¬
tor of BYTE magazine, then took over editorial duties
in #96 (his signature is Humpty falling off a wall), a
position he “rejoices in” to this day. (One hopes.)

Certainly the Knight Letter would be nothing
without its writers, contributors, reviewers, designers,
and illustrators, who are duly acknowledged and pro¬
foundly thanked—right here! For the record, a list of
our editors-in-chief, all of whom served our member¬
ship superbly:

♦ Stan Marx, #s 1 (August , 1974)- 7 (June 1977); 27
(October 1987) - 35 (Fall 1990)

♦ Peter Heath, 8 (November 1977) - 13 (November
1979)

♦ David Schaefer, 14 (August 1980) - 17 (July 1982)

♦ Sandor Burstein, 18 (February 1983) - 21 (Spring
1984)

♦ August Imholtz, 22 (February 1985) - 26 (February
1987)

♦ Charlie Lovett, 36 (Winter 1991) - 48 (Autumn
1994)

♦ Mark Burstein, 49 (Spring 1995) - 77 (Fall 2006);
83 (Winter2009)

♦ Andrew Sellon, 78 (Summer 2007) -82 (Summer

2009)

♦ Sarah Adams-Kiddy, 84 (Spring 2010) - 85 (Winter

2010 )

♦ Mahendra Singh, 86 (Summer 2011) - 95 (Fall
2015)

♦ Chris Morgan, 96 (Spring 2016) -

To help our history continue, would YOU kindly con¬
sider writing an article, a review, or a short item such
as is found in “Far-Flung”? If you discover something
we may not know about, tell us! And if you have expe¬
rience, or would like to try your hand, in anything re¬
lated to magazine production, feel free to contact us.

Over the last 44 years, we have evolved into a
substantive, professionally printed magazine with a
steady circulation of at least 300 members, including
those from ten countries outside the U.S. Here’s to
the next 100 issues, in celebration of which we have
designated this one Volume III, Issue 1.

“There’s glory for you. ”

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Carroll’s Publishing History
with Macmillan: A Research Narrative

CLARE IMHOLTZ

B y 2001,1 was making near-yearly trips to Lon¬
don, and I decided to visit the Macmillan
Company’s publishing archives at the Brit¬
ish Library (BL) to see what I could learn about Lewis
Carroll’s relationship with Macmillan, his publisher. I
had read about the archives in Morton Cohen’s excel¬
lent Lewis Carroll and the House of Macmillan, but as far
as I knew, few Carroll researchers other than Morton
had used these archives.

I sent an email to Elizabeth James, who at the
time was Head of British Collections at the BL, and
who had herself published widely on the Macmillan
Company. She kindly gave me the manuscript (MS)
numbers for the Macmillan correspondence I need¬
ed. At the time, Byron Sewell and I were preparing a
bibliography of Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno books, so I
was particularly interested in correspondence about
that novel. Elizabeth had the specific volumes called
and ready the day I came to the Library.

Since then, I have spent many hours in the manu¬
script reading room of the BL, poring over the Mac¬
millan Letterbooks—large heavy volumes that contain
copies of the outgoing correspondence of the Macmil¬
lan Company with Lewis Carroll and others. Examin¬
ing these books is an unfailingly illuminating and fas¬
cinating experience, but it is not without challenges.

There are several series of Letterbooks in the Ar¬
chives (e.g., some contain letters to family members,
and others contain letters to other publishers), but
I consulted the general correspondence series: more
than 500 books containing the Macmillan Company’s
letters to its major authors, dating from 1854 to 1940.
Each book measures about 12 by 16 inches, is about
4 inches thick, and weighs just shy of a ton (or so it
seems). They are cumbersome to work with physi¬
cally, and also can be difficult from a research stand¬
point. For each manuscript number, there are two or
three Parts, that is, two or three Letterbooks, usually
three, with 500 or more letters in each book. At the
beginning of Part 1, there is an index, arranged by ad¬
dressee. If perchance you fail to order Part 1 because
you are only interested in letters in Parts 2 or 3, or
you are up against the BL’s daily limit of ten requests,
you are in trouble, because you won’t have an index.
Voice of experience.

Beginning then in 2001, every time I went to Lon¬
don I would go to the BL and examine additional Let¬
terbooks. Not only have I found extensive informa¬
tion on the publishing specifics of Alice’s Adventures
in Wonderland, Sylvie and Bruno, and Carroll’s other
books, but I have gained significant insight into the
relationship between Carroll and his publisher, Alex¬
ander Macmillan. The Letterbooks tell us a great deal
about the personalities of Lewis Carroll and Alexan¬
der Macmillan, and about the relationship between
the Macmillan Company and Carroll, particularly in
comparison with Macmillan’s other authors.

Carroll has a well-deserved reputation for being
difficult (usually expressed as “fussy” or “finicky”).
Even before the first Alice book went to press, despite
his youth and fledgling status as a children’s author,
he did not hesitate to push his publishing views for¬
ward—though not in an objectionable manner. Car-
roll was in control of his publications with Macmillan
from the very beginning. He bore all the costs of pub¬
lishing and promoting his books, and it was Carroll
who made the final decisions as to the books’ design,
quality, print runs, advertising, and so on. Nonethe¬
less, even though Carroll was responsible financially,
Alexander Macmillan, the head of the firm, never hes¬
itated when he felt it necessary to push back against
his author’s sometimes impractical ideas. Most impor¬
tantly, Alexander always gave Carroll excellent advice.
Alexander Macmillan personally strongly influenced
the publishing specifics of Alice and Carroll’s other
works. The extent of his influence can be fully appre¬
ciated only by reading the Letterbooks.

Alexander had a wonderful, lively way of express¬
ing himself, and his letters to Carroll are written with
verve and brio. You see in their correspondence a
ceaseless back-and-forth between Carroll and Alex¬
ander (and the latter’s colleagues and successors). If
Macmillan wanted to do x, Carroll would prefer y or
z; the two were never quite in sync. Sometimes one
man would prevail and sometimes the other. You get
a much fuller sense of this from the Letterbooks than
can be obtained from reading Morton Cohen’s book,
which contains Carroll’s letters to Macmillan, but only
a few brief excerpts from the Macmillan side of the
correspondence.

Carroll could be grumpy and demanding, and
Macmillan occasionally (though rarely) would re¬
spond sharply. When Carroll complained about the
paper chosen for the German translation of Alice’s Ad¬
ventures in Wonderland , Alexander Macmillan wrote,
“We have no possible motive for saving you money
against your will, and assuredly did not intentionally
use one paper, knowing you wanted another. I know
you wanted a good paper as like the English as pos¬
sible. This we took pains to procure.”

Carroll sometimes had unrealistic ideas. In 1869
he wanted Macmillan to publish two variant editions
of his poetry book, Phantasmagoria —one to include
special Oxford poems and be sold only in Oxford,
and at a higher price. Macmillan told him forthright¬
ly: “There is no end of the perversity your proposed
scheme will cause.” In this instance, Macmillan won.
Twenty years later, Carroll won when he insisted on
publishing the unpopular Sylvie and Bruno books in
initial runs of 20,000 copies each. There were still
copies of the second book in Macmillan’s warehouse
as late as the 1930s.

Except with Sylvie and Bruno, Carroll was always
cautious. Carroll obsessed over the size of print runs,
and he was extremely critical of any printing and
binding anomalies he perceived. He knew what he
wanted, and he was a perfectionist. Macmillan spent
a lot of ink reassuring Carroll about his many con¬
cerns. Although the House of Macmillan may have
expressed annoyance with Carroll once or twice, in
general they were patient, respectful, polite, and will¬
ing to bend over backwards to mollify Carroll, no mat¬
ter how much grief he gave them. They fulfilled un¬
ending requests for favors without complaint.

Studying the Letterbooks, one can compare Mac¬
millan’s correspondence with Carroll with the letters
written to other authors. And this is revelatory. Except
in the early years, where they begin “Dear Sir,” let¬
ters to Carroll invariably begin “Dear Mr. Dodgson.”
Letters to other authors often begin more familiarly:
Dear Lang, Dear Frazer, Dear Pater, My dear Tenny¬
son. Dodgson is never without the “Mr.” And letters
from members of the Macmillan family to other au¬
thors are often signed with just their first names—
Alex, Maurice, George, Frederick—but not their let¬
ters to Carroll. (Letters from the Macmillan Company
were generally signed by Alexander in the early days,
and later often by a younger family member, or his
partner George Lillie Craik. For a time, most were
signed simply “Macmillan 8c Co.”)

It appears clear that this stiffness originated on
Carroll’s side. It is curious how formal Carroll always
was, although he was on friendly terms with Alexan¬
der Macmillan and evidently visited his family. It has
been suggested that Carroll looked down on the Mac¬
millans because they were in trade. He certainly used

the Company as errand boys. He had them buy him
theatre tickets endlessly, and order him books on oc¬
casion. He wanted them to hire one of his cousins
(William Melville Wilcox, Carroll’s godson and first
cousin once removed). He frequently asked Macmil¬
lan to read and publish books written by friends; most
were rejected, though a few were published at Car-
roll’s expense and only to please him. For example,
referring to Bumblebee Bogo’s Budget by Carroll’s friend
William Webb Follett Synge, Macmillan 8c Co. wrote:
“We think very little of the verses and as we told you
when we agreed to publish them we should not have
undertaken to bring them out except to oblige you.”
(October 12, 1887).

Much of this insight into the relationship be¬
tween author and publisher would be missed if you
were reading only the letters to Carroll, and not some
of the letters to other authors in the same Letterbook.
This is the great advantage of reading the actual Let¬
terbooks rather than just the excerpts that are avail¬
able at two U.S. research institutions.

Yes! After traveling to London for years and years
to read this correspondence, it was a shock to discov¬
er that much of it is available right here in the United
States. The Rosenbach Museum and Library in Phila¬
delphia holds a microfilm of the letters from Macmil¬
lan to Carroll, along with a transcript of these letters,
as well as virtually all known letters from Carroll to
Macmillan. (The letters from Carroll were sold by the
Macmillan Company to the Rosenbach in 1957, and
the microfilm was provided to the Rosenbach as part
of that sale.)

The Macmillan letters to Carroll are also available
at New York University’s Fales Library. Morton Cohen
told me that he was denied access to the Macmillan
Archives for unknown reasons when he was preparing
the above-mentioned volume, so he had to rely on
the Rosenbach holdings. He had copies of the letters
made from the Rosenbach microfilm, and these cop¬
ies are now at the Fales.

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES
IN READING IN THE LETTERBOOKS?

Before addressing that question, a word of explana¬
tion as to how the Letterbooks were created may be
helpful. The Letterbooks were made up of sheets of
a sort of tissue-paper (each with a heavier backing to
give them solidity) bound together—up to 500 sheets
per book. A sheet of the paper would be dampened,
and then placed in contact with a newly written, but
dry, original letter. The whole book was then closed
and placed in a press for 30 to 60 seconds: voila, an
impression of the letter would be left on the damp
tissue-paper.The major problem in reading the letters
today is illegibility. The quality of the copies has ap¬
parently deteriorated over the decades, and many let-

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ters are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to read.
Those dating from the crucial early years of Alice pub¬
lication are unfortunately among the worst. Strangely,
it seems that the copies in Fales and the Rosenbach
are sometimes more legible than the copies in the Let-
terbooks at the BL, even though the former are cop¬
ies of copies. Plato’s cave in reverse. If we consider the
Letterbooks the originals, or at least as close as we can
get to the originals, then sometimes the copies may
be superior.

For example, in the Letterbooks covering Octo¬
ber 27, 1865, through April 25, 1866 (MS 55385), I
found all the letters to Carroll illegible. The last 200-
plus pages are totally blank. This problem continues
in the next book, MS 55386 Part 1, where many letters
are so faint one can see almost nothing.

Figure 1 is a letter from MS 55386, dated April
30, 1866, which the Rosenbach transcriber was able to
read much more of than I, giving support to my theo¬
ry that sometimes the copies at the Rosenbach might
be more legible than the BL copies. (The illustrations
in this article are third-generation images—from the
Rosenbach microfilm by way of the Fales Library. But
they will give you an idea.)

Here is the Rosenbach transcription:

My dear Sir,

I shall have a little handbill such as you
wish drawn up and you shall see a proof. I
think it should not be too large, or the ex¬
tracts too long. It is more effective to have
short telling ones. If you don’t mind the
trouble it might be better that you make the

extracts yourself. I will wait till you tell me if
you will do it.

Yours very truly,

A. Macmillan

If we go on advertising always, we shall
spend an awful amount of money. Each
copy of your book that is sold is an adver¬
tisement, and I doubt whether people buy
at all in proportion to the amount spent.

The book won’t drop out of sight.

At the BL, I could read most of the postscript, but
not the words above the signature. In Figure 1, an im¬
age from the Rosenbach microfilm, most of the words
above the signature seem legible.

The illegibility at the BL is generally due to fad¬
ing of the ink, but there are also cases in which the
wet copying process apparently has caused the ink
to spread, making it difficult to read. On one occa¬
sion, I tried to look at the letters from the back, using
a mirror, because the image seemed a little sharper
that way, since one could better see the line originally
made by the nib of the pen.

And of course there are handwriting issues. Let¬
ters from Alexander Macmillan’s partner George Lil¬
lie Craik in particular can often be difficult to read.
Figure 2 is an example of Craik’s handwriting from
1888. This particular example isn’t the most egre¬
gious that I have encountered, but it indicates the
basic problem. (Note, by the way, the numbers at the
top: 605 is the number of the previous letter to Car-
roll, 977 is the next letter in this book to Carroll—a

Figure 3 .

helpful internal indexing system, which is unfortunate¬
ly not present in the early volumes of the Letterbooks.)

Figure 3 is an example of illegibility in a letter
from Alexander Macmillan. On December 17, 1871,
with the first thousands of Through the Looking-Glass
coming off the presses, Carroll had written to say that
Tenniel complained of “inequality” in the printing of
the illustrations. Macmillan replied, “I have got the
paper made with less size for those new copies, and
I think this will obviate a good deal of the [illegible]
which Mr. Tenniel complained of. ...” (“Size” refers
to any of several substances that can be used in paper¬
making to control the absorbency.)

I have been struggling with this illegible word. I
thought for a while it was “woolliness,” but I was not
satisfied with this reading, even though I think Alex¬
ander Macmillan may have used the word in at least
one other letter to Carroll.

Figure 4 is a closer look at the illegible word. I
now believe the word must be “rottenness,” although
this is not a word we would use today. At the BL, I
compared the initial letter to other words in the let¬
ters written by Alexander Macmillan, and “r” was the
only match. Macmillan’s initial s, c, w, and v were all
different. Moreover, what looks like a dot over an “i” is
actually a speck on the paper. The word “rottenness”
was apparently used in the nineteenth century to re¬
fer to a lack of sharpness in a line of an engraving.
See, for example, Wood engraving: a manual of instruc¬
tion by William James Linton (London: George Bell
and Sons, 1884), p. 68: “Avoid broken black lines, un¬
less purposely broken; rottenness of line, when part

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of the surface of a line is cut away, or when the line is
undercut, so that it breaks down; shallowness of cut¬
ting. ...” (Figure 4 also shows slightly the spreading
of the ink that I mentioned.)

If the copies that are available at the Rosenbach
and the Fales are in fact more legible than the BL cop¬
ies, the likely explanation would be that the BL copies
are undergoing a continuous process of deterioration
and are no longer as easy to read as they would have
been 50 years ago. Macmillan scholar Elizabeth James
and Macmillan archivist Alysoun Sanders concur.

Another challenge: I have noted some indexing
failures in the Letterbooks, though not a large num¬
ber. A few letters to Carroll are missing from the in¬
dex. There are also numerous letters to others that
mention Carroll, but these are not indexed under
Carroll (i.e., Dodgson).

Another problem is lacunae. As Cohen has com¬
mented, there are “cavernous gaps” in the correspon¬
dence on both sides. For example, there are no ex-

tant letters from Carroll to Macmillan from May 1871
to December 17, 1871, and this was a crucial time,
when Through the Looking-Glass was going to press.
Also, we sometimes have responses from Carroll to
questions from Macmillan that can’t be found in the
Letterbooks.

ROSENBACH TRANSCRIPTION

I haven’t seen the microfilm of the letters at the
Rosenbach, but I have seen the transcript the Rosen-
bach made many years ago. I’ve concluded that, al¬
though the Rosenbach transcriber had many difficul¬
ties, just as I did, he or she was able to decipher many
more words than I could, supporting my theory of
deterioration of the BL copies of the letters.

On the other hand, the Rosenbach transcription
does have many errors—places where I feel sure my
reading is more correct.

Figure 5 is a letter from Craik from 1876. For
the second paragraph, Rosenbach’s transcript reads,
“They could play ball and offer them to anyone else

here, but there is nothing to prohibit the publication
in Holland where they are printed.”

One realizes immediately (right off the bat, you
might say) how unlikely it is that Craik would have
used the phrase “play ball,” and a glance at the Ox¬
ford English Dictionary confirms that the first citation
of “play ball” in the figurative sense of “to cooperate”
was in 1903. A better reading might be “They could
not, they will not, offer them. . . .”

I hope the above examples convey some idea of
both the pleasures and the difficulty of working with
these “primary” or nearly primary sources.

This paper originated as a talk at The House of Macmil¬
lan: An International Publisher’s Archive Symposium, June
24, 2016, at the University of Reading, UK. I am grateful
to Rosenbach Librarian Elizabeth Fuller, Professor Michael
Hancher, Dr. Elizabeth James, Macmillan archivist Aly-
soun Sanders, Carroll collector Alan Tannenbaum, and the
late Professor Morton Cohen for their generous assistance.

...of the mushroom”

MARK BURSTEIN

D uring the fabled Sixties, Carroll’s delightful
Alice tales were adopted and absorbed by
the hippie culture, perhaps in part as the
result of televised and university showings of the 1951
Disney cartoon, the latter specifically for the amuse¬
ment of “heads” (drug enthusiasts) - 1 As I put it in the
introduction to the “Underground” edition of Alice’s
Adventures Under Ground , 2 “Alice and the 1960s were
a natural mix—the radical world-view they shared,
the identifications with the bizarre, surreal, the anti¬
authoritarian—and both enjoyed a fine sense of hu¬
mor. Alice and her friends, particularly the hookah¬
smoking caterpillar, became popular icons in this
decade, spawning posters, belt-buckles, blotter paper
‘acid,’ books (Thomas Fensch’s fallacious Alice in Ac-
idland) , 3 and rock songs (“White Rabbit”) by people
who clearly never read the book.” But by and large
Alice’s popularity in the ’60s was due to how snugly
the works fit into the psychedelic drug experience on
a multitude of levels. 4

A fairly recent example of the pervasiveness of
the identification of the caterpillar’s mushroom with
psychedelia is this photograph (Figure 1) of Psilocybe
cubensis, aka “magic mushrooms,” growing out of Al¬
ice’s Adventures , the creation of photomicrographer/
neurobiologist Dr. Igor Siwanowicz, another of whose
images grace this issue’s cover. 5

The first problem with Alice’s absorption into the
counterculture was that many drugged-out or simply
delusional hippies figured that, if the book was so “ac¬
curate,” Carroll himself must have been a “head” of
his time, citing not just internal references (a hoo¬
kah, mushrooms, grass), but the free availability of
opioid and other drugs in Carroll’s time. Thomas
Fensch’s Alice in Acidland (1970) 6 is perhaps the worst
offender, positing Carroll’s “acid” (LSD) use eighty
years before its discovery. Fortunately, clear readings
of Carroll’s now available diaries and letters do not
picture a man who had any experience with intoxicants,
other than perhaps the occasional second glass of sher¬
ry. There is record of his taking opium once, for a tooth¬
ache. (It could be said that Carroll did have knowledge
of certain non-psychoactive drugs because he practiced
homeopathic medicine, both poisonous and herbal.)

The second part of this canard was the misiden-
tification of the Caterpillar’s mushroom as Amanita
muscaria, fly agaric (Figure 2), a psychoactive entheo-
gen whose ubiquity in illustrated fairy-tales and kitschy

Figure 2.

Figure 3 .

Figure 4.

kitchen and nursery decor is probably based on its
appealing appearance (a bright red cap covered with
numerous small white pyramid-shaped warts). One of
its characteristic hallucinations is seeming changes in
size, not to mention distortions of space and time. It
was said that even if Carroll didn’t ingest them him¬
self, he could at least have read about them, most
likely in Mordecai Cubitt Cooke’s The Seven Sisters of
Sleep: A Popular History of the Seven Prevailing Narcotics
of the World (I860).' 7

In a jaw-droppingly ill-mannered, inadequately
researched, insanely counterfactual, and maliciously
accusatory paper titled “Wonderland Revisited” (one
can’t help recalling Twain’s remark in Life on the Mis¬
sissippi , “One gets such wholesale returns of conjec¬
ture out of such a trifling investment of fact”) pub¬
lished in Psychedelia Britannica: Hallucinogenic Drugs in
Britain , 8 one Michael Carmichael asserts that, “a few
days before writing Alice , Carroll made his only ever
visit to the Bodleian library, 9 where a copy of Morde¬
cai Cooke’s recently-published drug survey The Seven
Sisters of Sleep had been deposited. The Bodleian copy
of this book still has most of its pages uncut, 10 with
the notable exception of the contents page and the
chapter on the fly agaric, entitled ‘The Exile of Sibe¬
ria.’ Carroll was particularly interested in all things
Russian: in fact, Russia was the only country he ever
visited outside Britain. 11 Dodgson would have been
immediately attracted to Cooke’s Seven Sisters of Sleep
for two more obvious reasons: he had seven sisters and
he was a lifelong insomniac.” Now that’s logic for you!

Books such as Andy Letcher’s Shroom: A Cultural
History of the Magic Mushroom 12 seem to accept musca¬
rine intoxication as a given; it has made its way into

Wikipedia as a fact with this citation. One problem: As
depicted by Tenniel (and seen in color in The Nursery
Alice), the mushroom was smooth-capped and gray,
and could not possibly be A. muscaria. While it is un¬
doubtedly true that A. muscaria (alone among the
mushroom family) characteristically produces delu¬
sions of changes in size, Carroll’s imagination, rather
than his scholarly research, was what caused Alice to
grow and shrink, whether from mushrooms, a slice of
cake, or a bottle of drink me . 13

Many modern illustrators have chosen to use
the colorful fly agaric, A. muscaria, including Greg
Hildebrandt (2004), Leonor Solans (2009), Trevor
Brown (2010), Camille Rose Garcia (2010), Benjamin
Lacombe (2015), and Anna Bond (2015); there are
fly agarics in the scene in the Tim Burton movie and
uncountable online images, posters, fan art, and the
like. I have not gone through every book I own to
check, but the earliest use I have found is in Gwyn¬
edd Hudson’s illustration (1922), where although the
Caterpillar was sitting on a different one, there were
fly agarics nearby.

Let us here also note that A. muscaria is poisonous,
and its ingestion must be handled with great care. 14

There is no Carrollian correspondence or diary
entry on this topic, so the subject of this inquiry would
be better stated as: Where did John Tenniel get the
image (Figure 3)? A book on mushrooms? Nature?
His own imagination? How much was based on Car-
roll’s own illustration for his Under Ground manuscript
(Figure 4) ?

A note in More Annotated Alice (1990) addresses
the topic, specifically citing “A Garden Tour of Won¬
derland” by Robert Hornback, 15 who declared it

Figure 5 .

could not be A. muscaria and thought it might be the
nonintoxicating Amanita fulva instead. OK, we know
for a fact that it’s not a depiction of A. muscaria , but
what exactly is it?

I wrote to Barbara Ching, executive secretary of
the North American Mycological Association (NAMA),
asking for recommendations of experts to talk to. She
got me in touch with Michael Beug, PhD, professor
emeritus at The Evergreen State College (Olympia,
Washington), toxicology chair for NAMA, author of
Ascomycete Fungi of North America: A Mushroom Reference
Guide , 16 and a particular expert in psychedelic mush¬
rooms; the renowned Roy Watling, MBE, PhD, head
of Mycology and Plant Pathology at the Royal Botanic
Garden Edinburgh, author of more than a dozen
books on mycology identification, including Fungi} 1
and Tropical Mycology ; 18 and Nicholas P. Money, PhD,
professor of botany at Miami University (Oxford,
Ohio), and author of Mushroom , 19 Mr. Bloomfield’s Or¬
chard: The Mysterious World of Mushrooms, Molds, and
Mycologists, 20 and Mushrooms: A Natural and Cultural
History 21 All of these distinguished gentlemen were
kind enough to take time to reply.

Beug stated:

The mushroom looks very generic to me. There
are a huge number of possibilities. The illustra¬
tion is clearly not Amanita muscaria. A leap of
imagination could point to an Amanita in the
vaginata group (which would include Amanita
fulva) , but too many differences exist for me
to like that idea. Why is the volva not shown?

Why is the cap not drawn as striate? Why are
there no volva remains on the cap? Where are
the trees that A. fulva must be associated with?

The illustration is closer to a generic Tri-
choloma or Melanoleuca or Clitocybe or a massive
number of other genera. Since it is in grass,
and given the size relative to the grass blades,
a good guess would be Marasmius oreades, the
Fairy Ring Mushroom (Figure 5), which is

famous for growing in circles in grass. The
morphology is entirely consistent with M. oreades.
There is a lot of mythology surrounding M.
oreades and fairies and so there is a plausible
reason to propose us[ing] this mushroom to
illustrate this story. It is also a tasty edible.

Watling said:

I know the figure well and have not thought
much more about it, as I considered the discus¬
sions about Amanita ludicrous. The illustra¬
tion is exceedingly good really and depicts two
fungi, the one the Caterpillar is seated on, and
the more interesting fungi below. The latter by
their shape and colouring are surely a species of
Panaeolus, of which at least one species from my
own experience with poison cases in Scotland is
hallucinogenic, 22 viz. P. subbalteatus now called P.
cinctulus. The larger “seat” is expanded, which
the Panaeolus would not do. If the sizes are
right—and there is no reason to suppose they
are not—the fungus is something like the Cloud
Mushroom, Clitocybe nebularis, which forms very
obvious fairy rings in woodlands. ( Marasmius
oreades, the usual “fairy ring” mushroom, is not
found in woodlands.) Some of these species
are toxic, although nebularis is not—although I
would not try it! I think the fungus hiding in the
grass below the Caterpillar is the significant one.

Money wrote:

In our time, when a premium is placed upon
molecular identification of mushrooms, the
best field mycologists refer to subconscious
skills in recognition that draw on the immediate
appearance of the fungus as well as its loca¬
tion, the surrounding vegetation, and time of
year. The smell of the fruit body, its texture,
and structural details revealed with a hand lens
play a secondary role in the recognition pro¬
cess. The subliminal response is also useful for
identifying mushrooms from illustrations, with
the caveat that the verdict is always dependent
on the proficiency and intent of the artist.

Following the logic of this preamble,

John Tenniel’s mushrooms look like the fruit
bodies of the fairy ring mushroom, Marasmius
oreades. The fairy ring mushroom is common
in Europe and would have been familiar to
anyone who walked in the meadows around
southern England. This fungus is quite vari¬
able in appearance, but the illustration in
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland typifies this
species, with its broad, smooth-surfaced cap
that begins as a bell and flattens at maturity.

The absence of a ring on the stem and cup,
or volva, at the base is also significant and ex¬
cludes many species from consideration. The
importance of fairy rings in European folk¬
lore may have been another feature of this
mushroom that attracted the artist. 23 What
better seat for a philosophical caterpillar?

There is one more characteristic of the fairy
ring mushroom that may have influenced its
use in Carroll’s book, but this is very speculative.
Is it possible that the author, or the publishers,
were concerned that a reader would take bites
from a wild mushroom, as Alice did? If so, they
would have made certain to avoid illustrating
anything with a ring on its stem, like a toxic
species of Amanita. And Marasmius oreades is the
perfect alternative to a poisonous mushroom,
because it is an edible species with a sweet taste.

Another well-known Carrollian mushroom (Figure 6)
was one of the “fairy-fancies” illustrated by his friend
E. Gertrude Thomson for his Three Sunsets and Other
Poems , 24 which more resembles Amanita muscaria, but
that’s a whole other story.

Granted, it’s not likely that the mushroom will
ever be positively identified, although it now looks
like the fairy ring may be the best candidate. Car-
roll’s niece F. Menella Dodgson recalled, “One walk,
when I was about eight, stands out clearly. He took
me Newlands Corner way, and when we came to the
‘fairy rings’ among the may trees there, he asked me
‘Do you believe in fairies?”’ 25 So at least we know he
was aware of this kind of mushroom.

As to the mushroom’s identity, even experts have
their doubts and speculations. But we definitively know
what it’s not, and that’s a good start.

Endnotes

1 ‘“Come, my head’s free at last!’ said Alice in a tone of
delight.” - Chapter V

2 WordPlay, 2000

3 Barnes, 1970

4 Jenifer Ransom’s fine article “An Archetype of
Transformation” ( KL 76:30) discusses the psychedelic
aspects in greater detail.

5 Dr. Siwanowicz is currently at the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus in
Virginia. Examples of his astonishingly colorful and
truly brilliant photographs of insects and other creatures
of the micro world can be found in the children’s
book Animals Up Close (DK Publishing, 2009) and on
the Web at www.photo.net/siwanowicz. If you don’t
happen to recognize that edition of Alice, it’s because,

as Dr. Siwanowicz told me in email correspondence, it’s
actually a Bible growing the mushrooms, onto which he
Photoshopped the cover of Wonderland “to make it less
controversial and put a different spin on it.”

6 “Differentiating once, we get LSD, a function of great
value” - Carroll’s “The Dynamics of a Parti-cle” (1865).
Despite its appearance, this is, of course, a reference to
pounds, £s; shillings, S; and pence, D.

7 The “seven sisters” were opium, coca, cannabis,
belladonna, datura, digitalis, and A. muscaria.

8 Antonio Melechi, ed., Turnaround Books, 1997. In
the essay, Dodgson is accused of pedophilia, rampant
drug abuse, and giving powerful pyschoactive drugs to
children. The entire essay could easily fit in the “Sic, Sic,
Sic” section of this magazine.

9 Another fine example of Mr. Carmichaels’ alternative
facts; Dodgson was a frequent visitor to the Bodlean, and
there is no particular evidence he ever saw this book.

10 He means unopened, not uncut.

11 Not to mention France, Germany, and Prussia on his way there.

12 Faber and Faber, 2006

13 And if it were necessary to identify the type of mushroom,
would it not also be necessary to identify the type of cake,
not to mention the contents of the drink me bottle, that
caused her size dysphoria?

14 To counteract toxicity, consumers in cultures such as are
found in Siberia drink a shaman’s urine, after he or she
ingested the mushroom.

15 Pacific Horticulture, Fall 1983

16 University of Texas Press, 2014

17 Smithsonian, 2003

18 CABI, 2002

19 Oxford University Press, 2011

20 Oxford University Press, 2002

21 Reaktion Books, 2017

22 Dr. Wading notes that his cases with P. cinctulus were due
to an accidental misidentification by their ingestors, not
someone trying to get high.

23 Mushrooms: A Natural and Cultural History, pp. 15-21

24 Macmillan, 1898

25 Introduction to The Diaries of Lewis Carroll, Roger
Lancelyn Green, ed., Oxford University Press, 1954.
Edward Wakeling points out that Nella doesn’t appear
in the diaries until August of 1887, when she would have
been eleven, not eight.

fag*

“ONCE I WAS A REAL TURTLE”

tenniel’s post-publication drawings and tracings in the berg collection: PART I

MATT DEMAKOS

M-

I enclose a puzzle for you to guess. It is a word in your letter which / can’t read,
but have carefully traced it, putting the paper up against the window.

—Lewis Carroll to Mary Brown, May 19, 1887

“begin at the beginning”

T r he Berg Collection in The New York Pub¬
lic Library holds many rare pieces of art by
John Tenniel—sketches, finished drawings,
and tracings—along with proofs and several quotable
letters. Most of the art is either collected into specially
bound books or tipped into editions of the intended
book opposite the corresponding print, but some
pieces are still loose, housed individually or collec¬
tively inside folders or booklike cases. The collection
holds, for example, twenty-three original drawings
and nineteen tracings created between 1859 and 1864
for Once a Week, a publication created to rival another
by Charles Dickens. The artwork, collected with the
corresponding engraved illustrations, was handsome¬
ly bound by Riviere & Son, a celebrated bookbind¬
ing firm. The collection also holds a brown morocco
scrapbook Tenniel kept of his engravings. The first
third of the 175 collected have “legends” (captions)
in his own hand, with the rest sadly blank. But praised
amongst the Berg’s treasures—and the main thrust
of this article—are the twenty-four post-publication
drawings and eighteen tracings Tenniel created from
his illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures
in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. In truth,
only one of these post-publication drawings is from
Looking-Glass.

As the name implies, post-publication drawings
are drawings Tenniel created after the books were
published and therefore were not used in the cre¬
ation of the illustrations. They are found in such in¬
stitutions as Harvard University, the Morgan Library,
and New York University, as well as in several private
collections. Of the sixty-five or so 1 drawings currently
known, the Berol seems to hold the earliest: the im¬
age of Alice watching the White Rabbit scurry away,
framed as a scroll hanging on a nail, complete with
holly leaves and the adorned date “1865.” It appears
on the verso of the frontispiece in an edition of Won¬
derland with a dedication to “Miss Marian Pritchett /

With Mr. Tenniel’s love. / Christmas. 1865.” 2 After
the Berg collection, Harvard has the most, with ten
for Wonderland (all non-reverse images—i.e., not mir¬
ror images of the printed illustrations) and three for
Looking-Glass (two in reverse). All these drawings are
sometimes referred to as finished drawings or commis¬
sion drawings. “Finished ’ not because they are com¬
pleted but because they have fine draftsmanship and
commission because they are or were thought to have
been created for collectors.

The Berg also holds two other Alice-related
items. They are first editions of the Alice books but
with tipped-in proof sheets (i.e., test pages printed
before the final printing of the books) opposite each
illustration, signed with “J. Tenniel” and “Dalziel,” the
engraver. The books are both bound in green mo¬
rocco as a set, complete with a hubbed spine, gold
printing, and decorative floral work. The uniformity
of the paper and the signatures (Tenniel left, Dalziel
right) suggests that the proofs were actually struck
about 1898 to 1905 when other such books were cre¬
ated with Tenniel’s Alice artwork. In fact, the books
may have been created in response to Carroll’s own
proof books being burned in a fire at Riviere, the
bookbinder.

Researchers going to the Berg Collection must
clamber up not only the wide marble staircases on
the outside of the building, between the two famed
lions, aptly named Patience and Fortitude, but also
the broad, impressive staircases within The New
York Public Library. Although their destination is
only the third floor, it seems as if they have tack¬
led the Empire State Building itself. The rooms are
located down a long marble-walled hallway in the
northeast corner. The main room feels like a Victo¬
rian gentleman’s study, with its high ornate vaulted
ceiling, built-in glass-enclosed bookcases, tall oil
paintings, bronze and marble busts, and random
odds and ends—like a quaint writing desk and chair
belonging to one Charles Dickens. Two of the paint-

Figure i. The Frontispiece (top, 191X118
mm) andTYie Duchess in the Kitchen
(bottom, 131X147 mm), John Tenniel,
post-publication drawings, both pencil on
board, both from The Henry W. and Albert A.
Berg Collection of English and American Litera¬
ture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox
and Tilden Loundations (hereafter, The Berg
Collection, NYPL). All drawings are shown full
size with their wide margins cropped, except where
noted. All tracings are shown with mounting
boards cropped. All dimensions are the full paper.

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ings are of the Berg brothers, Albert A. Berg being
one of the three main contributors to the collection.
Owen D. Young and W. T. H. Howe are the other
two contributors, the former being represented by a
bronze bust atop a tall card catalogue and the latter,
well, he’s—in a true Victorian spirit—silently lurking
about the place.

To see all the Berg’s post-publication drawings
for Alice , researchers must
fill out—while still trying
to catch their breaths—
four individual call slips.

One slip will be for
an 1866 version of Won¬
derland rebound by Riv¬
iere in blue morocco
adorned with a hubbed
spine, gilded lettering,
floral designs, and gilded
leaves. Tipped into its
pages are two drawings
by John Tenniel: the one
of the King calling the
next witness (the frontis¬
piece, Figure 1, top) and
the other of Alice danc¬
ing the Lobster-Quadrille
with the Mock Turtle and
the Gryphon, both draw¬
ings appearing opposite their respective prints.

Another slip will be for a red morocco solander
case, or book-box, designed by Riviere to look like a
book, and to be shelved like a book, complete with a
hubbed spine and gilded lettering. Cushioned within
its soft, red moire silk lining and under several silk-
covered chemises, or leaves, lies a matted drawing of
the Duchess in the kitchen (Figure 1, bottom). It is
unique among the Berg’s drawings for being the only
one that is not a mirror image of the print.

Yet another slip will be for an exquisitely de¬
signed, precious . . . well, it’s a manila envelope, actu¬
ally! It protects a matted illustration of “The Walrus
and the Carpenter,” when the Walrus declares “Now
if you’re ready, Oysters dear.” It is unique amongst
the set for being the only one for Looking-Glass , and
for being the only one once owned by Berg; all the
others derive from the Young collection. (The manila
envelope is a prime example of how collectors ever so
subtly slight the better book.)

Our last slip is for another red morocco book-
box with hubbed spine and gilded printing (Figure
2); in fact, it was made by Stikeman to match the first.
Within a soft, red moire silk lining and under several
silk-covered chemises lies a stack of twenty unmatted
post-publication drawings, all separated by tissue pa¬
per. The drawing paper is surprisingly thin but with

wide margins, cut to varied sizes. Stacked beneath
these drawings are eighteen tracings, each of which is
mounted on a larger board (128 by 166 mm) by way
of a light dab of glue on each corner, some of which
have become unglued. The paper color is brown, and
curiously dark. But if we run just a few blocks south
to The Morgan Library we will find in their collec¬
tion—after we wash our hands, of course—an album
of Punch sketches. Three of
them have tracings, dating
from 1888 to 1890, and all
are on the same brown trac¬
ing paper. 3 (For examples
of the drawings and the
tracings, see Figures 3-7,
and Table 1 for a full list.)

Atop the drawings is an
old typewritten list—likely
created in the 1940s when
the collection came to the
library—of all forty-two il¬
lustrations in Wonderland
with one column for draw¬
ings and another for trac¬
ings, indicating which ones
the library holds. It’s a con¬
fusing affair, as it includes
all the drawings in the book
box and the companion box,
although the companion box item is crossed out,
and penciled in are the two illustrations bound in
the aforementioned book. These penciled amend¬
ments are represented on the catalogue card, which
reads: “Tenniel, John. 22 original drawings, signed,
with tracings of 18 of them, for C. L. Dodgson’s ‘Al¬
ice’s [AJdventures in Wonderland.’” Added below
is a note that two of the drawings are in the book,
and below that is a cross reference to the companion
book-box. 4

In one sense, the phrase on the catalogue card
“with tracings of 18 of them” is accurate and in an¬
other sense careless. It is accurate in that the tracings
are a subset of the twenty drawings in the box, and
not some random unrelated set. That is, there is no
tracing without a companion drawing. Or, looking
at it another way, two tracings are lost. The phrase is
carelessly worded, however, in that it sounds as if Ten¬
niel traced the drawings themselves. It is, of course,
the other way around. These tracings are not of the
drawings, but were created for the drawings. In the
same way that an artist may have a painting and stud¬
ies created for that painting, Tenniel had his post-pub¬
lication drawings and tracings for them. To be clear,
these are the tracings used to create the drawings and
they are not the tracings he used to transfer sketches
onto wood for an engraver to cut.

Drawing

Tracing

Page

Name

Location

Paper

Border Art

Size (mm)

Paper

Border Art

Size (mm)

Rabbit with Watch

Book-Box

Thin

171X118^

Brown

114X81^

A Little Door

Thin

8-<

178X118^

Brown

88X72

Drink Me

Thin

141^, 66

153X110^

—

Rabbit Scurries Away

Thin

177^

178X127^

Brown

107X89

Alice in Pool of Tears

Thin

ll7-<

168X117^

—

Father William with Eel

Thin

182X132^

Brown

99X75

Fish Footmen

Thin

184X134^

Brown

98X81

Duchess in Kitchen

Thin

181X133^

Brown

98X88

103

Hatter Reciting Twinkle

Thin

173^, 166, 103^

174X125^

Brown

102X83

110

Dormouse and Teapot

Thin

150^, 110^

177X128^

Brown

84X95

113

The Three Gardeners

Thin

176X119^

Brown

103X83

121

Alice with Flamingo

Thin

182X131^

Brown

114X79

128

Executioner’s Argument

Thin

177^

169X125^

Brown

104X80

132

Alice and Duchess

Thin

188^< Unknown

179X134^

Brown

100X62

138

Sleeping Gryphon

Thin

168X118^

Brown

112X87

141

Mock Turtle’s Story

Thin

150^

177X138^

Brown

111X95

157

The Lobster

Thin

182X133^

Brown

120X79

166

W. Rabbit as Herald

Thin

18^

172X126^

Brown

115X85

170

Hatter Standing

Thin

18^

173X130^

Brown

173^

101X69

173

Hatter Running

Thin

10^, 173^

156X127^

Brown

109X80

—

Frontispiece

Tipped in

Board

191X118^

150

Dancing the Quadrille

book (1866)

Thin

107X168^

Duchess in Kitchen

Book-Box

Board

131X147

Walrus Talking

Folder

Board

183X145^

Note: Many of the drawings and
are shown by the 1866 edition’s
paper or tracing paper.

a few of the tracings have random “border art,” drawings in the margins from other illustrations. These
page number (with “F” for frontispiece and -< for reverse image). Dimensions represent the size of the

Table i. Tenniel’s Post-Publication Drawings and Tracings for Alice in the Berg Collection.

“WHO AM I THEN? TELL ME THAT FIRST”

“Indeed, at the present time I have a huge undertak¬
ing on hand, in which I take great delight,” Tenniel
stated in an aside when talking about his weekly Punch
schedule, “the finishing of scores of my sketches, of
which I have many hundreds. They are for a friend—
an enthusiastic admirer, if I may be permitted to say
so.” 5 Writers often replace this unidentified “enthusi¬
astic admirer” with an ellipsis ( ... ), because it’s off-
topic from the main point: how Tenniel worked. But
this enthusiastic admirer is important for understand¬
ing archival material. He (most likely male) shows
that Tenniel created not only individual artworks as
gifts from time to time but also batches of artwork.
He explains the uniformity in the set of twenty post¬

publication drawings housed in the book-box, all on
identical paper with identical margins (although,
admittedly, varied sizes). This admirer also explains
the uniformity in the companion tracings, all with the
same degree of detail, all with penciled framing box¬
es, and all on identical brown tracing paper. But as we
will see later, the drawings may owe their existence
not to a collector but to an event.

Nonetheless, collectors (assuming more than
one for the time being) did eventually receive the
drawings. One imagines they were pleasantly amused
with the faux doodles scattered around the borders,
for they were actually traced by Tenniel from other
illustrations in the Alice books— a concept unique
to the Berg’s set. (Harvard has three post-publication

drawings with secondary drawings, but they are larger
and have an entirely different presentation. See fig¬
ure 8.) The Berg’s drawing of Alice holding a flamin¬
go while conversing with the Duchess, for example,
has a doodle of just the little frog from the illustration
where Alice defends herself from the deck of cards
flying at her. Just why Tenniel added these bonuses—
fifteen of the twenty have them—is unknown. They
do, however, show his playfulness and, being extra
bits thrown in, perhaps even his generosity—a trait of
his illustrated and specifically mentioned in Frankie
Morris’s biography of the artist. 6

And these collectors were likely pleased with the
artwork’s fineness , being, hopefully, connoisseurs who
took “great delight”—like Tenniel’s “enthusiastic ad¬
mirer”—in the artist’s meticulous cross-hatching and
careful draftsmanship. Then again, perhaps they were
philistines who were only wowed because the draw¬
ings were “the wrong ways ’roun’.” Just why Tenniel
created such a bulky set of post-publication drawings
is unknown (although a likely theory will be present¬
ed later in this article). One could surmise that he
was demonstrating what he actually drew on the block
for Wonderland , the work that he created with such
care, beauty, and skill, and that was ultimately obliter¬
ated. In this way, instead of seeing these drawings as
secondary, as unimportant in the history of the Alice
books, we can perhaps see them as faithful represen¬
tations—with a modicum of latitude—of what was cut
away before the unscrupulous engraver gored them
with his scorper. 7

But hasn’t it been argued that Tenniel did not
draw on the wood for Wonderland? And hasn’t it been
argued that, when he did draw on the wood he did
not create a detailed composition, and his engrav¬
ers completed the illustration, adding backgrounds,
repositioning figures, and even creating their own
cross-hatching? 8

There is a plethora of arguments against the lat¬
ter idea, but we will restrict ourselves to a few. The
first is from a letter in the Berg Collection itself that
Tenniel wrote to George Bendy on November 6,
1871, only months after finishing the Looking-Glass
drawings: “I am completely weary of drawing on
wood: perfectly sick of wood engraving....” 9 If he
only loosely sketched on the wood, he would hardly
be speaking of it in such terms. (Auxiliary to this,
Tenniel, referring to his Punch habits, said, “on Fri¬
day morning I begin, and stick to it all day, with my
nose well down on the blocK’ [italics added]. 10 Again,
all day on the block isn’t for creating a mere sketch,
one to be recomposed by another.) Second, there is
an uncut woodblock Tenniel drew for Punch , which
is as detailed as his post-publication drawings. 11 And
last, we have an eyewitness, E. J. Milliken, writing,
“Anyone who has seen, as the present writer has been

privileged to do, many of Tenniel’s cartoons in their
pristine state of strong yet delicate pencil-drawings on
the box-wood block, must keenly regret the unavoid¬
able loss of such a mass of masterly artistic achieve¬
ment.” 12 This feeling, inadvertently plagiarized two
paragraphs above, is an apt description of the feeling
one gets when viewing the post-publication drawings
in the Berg. They are exquisite. It can only be hoped
that their reproduction here—for the first time—can
half-capture their beauty.

We may add an argument as well, directly relat¬
ed to Looking-Glass. Of the many comments Tenniel
makes on the proofs—advising the Dalziel brothers
what to lighten, what was cut too thick, or what to cut
away completely—never does it sound as if the design
of the image were a collaborative effort. On the proof
where Alice watches the two Knights battle, Tenniel
complains that the “White Knight + Horse a great
deal too dark. Split coarse black lines” and adds this
telling complaint: “The figure was quite gray on the
drawing.” Likewise, on the proof where Alice is in the
Sheep’s shop, Tenniel writes that Alice’s “Face should
have been darker ’ [double underline] , 13 Both of these
comments refer back to the wood drawing they cut
away, and imply it was the standard to follow. Tenniel
sometimes even directs the engravers to make some¬
thing darker or lighter than he has drawn it. Though
the final image was indeed a collaboration between
the artist and the engraver, some scholars, with their
goody-two-shoes tightly laced, depict the relationship
as if between two equals. But the evidence, at least in
Tenniel’s case, does not support this claim. 14

And what of the idea that Tenniel did not draw on
wood for Wonderland? The evidence for this concept
seems to be based solely on the fact that, although
there are extant tracings for Looking-Glass , when Ten¬
niel is transferring his sketches to the block, there are
no such extant tracings for Wonderland. Therefore,
Tenniel did not draw on the block for Wonderland.
First, much of Tenniel’s artwork for the Alice books
was batched up and tipped into books. Though sev¬
eral of these books have a mix of tracings, drawings,
and proofs, some do specialize. So, it is very possible
that the tracings were in one such book that happens
not to be extant. In fact, where is item 7c? This item,
a copy of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland , owned by Jo¬
seph Widener, was shown in the exhibition at Colum¬
bia University celebrating the one hundredth anni¬
versary of Carroll’s birth in 1832. 15 Contained within
its pages, opposite each corresponding illustration,
were forty original drawings. Whatever they were—
perhaps tracings?—they are all lost to us. In fact, giv¬
en that an overwhelming majority (83 of 92) of Ten-
niel’s illustrations for the Alice books have only one
extant sketch, it is probable that item 7c is the missing
tracings. (Perhaps it was a companion to the Looking-

Figure 3 . Dormouse in Teapot, John Tenniel,
tracing ; pencil on tracing paper, 84 X 95 mm
(right); and post-publication drawing , pencil
on paper, 177 X 128 mm (far right), both from
The Berg Collection, NYPL.

Figure 4 . The White Rabbit as Herald,

John Tenniel, tracing, pencil on tracing paper
115 X 85 mm (right); and post-publication draw¬
ing, pencil on paper, 172 X 126 mm far right),
both from The Berg Collection, NYPL.

The teacup above the March Hare is the same as
the one by the Hatter’s leg, of course, but Alice’s
face is harder to place, though it seems to be a
reverse image of Alice taken from the later illustra¬
tion when she dances the Quadrille.

v i T TTTrtlT|p , P^«T}m. *]; i it r-

The image in the margin is taken from an earlier illus¬
tration when the White Rabbit “scurried away into the
darkness. ” This is one of the four drawings that has
a pencil boarder as if the drawing was once mounted
and framed.

Figure 5 . The White Rabbit Holding his Watch,

John Tenniel, tracing, pencil on tracing paper, 114 X 81 mm
(right); and post-publication drawing, pencil on paper,
171 X118 mm (far right), both from
The Berg Collection, NYPL.

Glass volume with thirty-five tracings, three drawings,
and two touched proofs currently in a private collec¬
tion.) Second, Carroll tells us at least two times, once
outright and once more by inference, that Tenniel
drew on the wood for Wonderland. “Thence I went to
Tenniel’s,” he wrote in his diary, “who showed me one
drawing on wood , the only thing he had, of Alice sitting
by the pool of tears, and the rabbit hurrying away”
[emphasis added]. Ten months later, Carroll implies
that Tenniel is drawing on wood when he concludes
that the fault with the first printing of Wonderland lies
in the illustrations, and includes Tenniel’s fee of £138
for redrawing on the wood. 16 Naturally, if Tenniel
drew only on paper, having the Dalziels transfer the
drawing, he would not have had to redo his work.

We can add some documentary evidence from
Tenniel’s side, as well, that he and no other drew on
the blocks for Wonderland. If we simply run back down
to the Morgan Library, we will find—after washing
our hands—a letter from Tenniel to the Dalziel broth¬
ers, dated January 11, 1870. With a business-as-usual
tone, Tenniel writes his engravers, “Are you disposed
to undertake the engraving of another little book for
Mr. Dodgson? It is a continuation of ‘Alice’s Adven¬
tures,’ and I am going to work upon it at once.” He

wrote this simple line without any qualifications or
clarifications, only adding the plea: “One line please
to say ‘yes’ and I’ll let you know the size of blocks
etc.” And he even signed it, as he could handle such
simple business, “in much haste / Yours very truly /
J. Tenniel.” 17 These men worked together on several
books before Wonderland and knew each other well.
If they had uncharacteristically worked differently for
that one book for that naive don, it would surely have
been mentioned in this letter. But no. All it took was a
hastily written letter and a one-line response—no dis¬
cussion needed about who would draw on the wood.
Tenniel would.

Thus, if we accept these arguments, it is fair to
propose that these reverse-image, post-publication
drawings in the Berg Collection accurately imitate—
with a modicum of latitude—what Tenniel drew on
the block for Wonderland.

But this brings up a curious issue with the trac¬
ings Tenniel included with these drawings. If in the
drawings , Tenniel is recreating the process of drawing
on wood, could he in the tracings be recreating the
process of transferring the drawing onto the wood?
That is, could the tracings have been mocked up for
show and added to the bundle without truly being

Note the added haystack and windmill below the umbrella’s
handle and another haystack upper right. The drawing is
the only one in the Berg’s set of twenty that adds elements
not otherwise in the original illustration.

used to create the drawings? And could the drawings
have been created through some other means, with
the aid of a light box, for example, or with the aid
of some mechanical, Victorian, //wgo-like contraption
projecting the image onto the paper? (To be perfectly
clear, the drawings are not “eyeballed” by the artist;
the main outline of the characters and objects, the
textures, the shadows, and even insignificant details
such as the scribbling, are reproduced to a nearly ex¬
act degree.)

There are also a couple of mysteries about the
tracings that suggest we must investigate their implied
function. First, there is the Mystery of the Backward
Bunny (Figure 5). Since the drawings are all reverse
images, the tracings, one would expect, should all be
non-reverse images, with Tenniel tracing the illustra¬
tion from a copy of the book or from a copy of a proof
he happened to have lying about. But one tracing
of the eighteen is a reverse image—the White Rab¬
bit holding his pocket watch, which begins the first
chapter. How is this possible? Second, there is the
small Mystery of the Graphite Ghosts (or the Invis¬
ibility Thereof). That is, there are no tracing marks,
no shadowy lines left ghosting about the drawings. If
Tenniel rubbed the lines of the tracings onto the pa¬

per and drew atop them, and occasionally to the side
of them, why do we not see these shadowy lines, these
ghosts? How did he erase the thicker, rubbed-down
tracing without smearing the thinner line drawn over
it? The drawings appear remarkably crisp. These are
troublesome points. But let us first prove that the trac¬
ings were used to create the drawings and allow that
proof—if it be so—to inspire us to address these snags
satisfactorily.

“give your evidence”

There are three principal ways to show if a tracing is
an intermediary between the published print and the
post-publication drawing. The first is by deviation. If a
certain line on the drawing deviates from the print¬
ed version, can we see it as being influenced by the
tracing? For example, the White Rabbit’s eye in the
illustration of him holding his pocket-watch is notice¬
ably smaller in the drawing than the print. Indeed,
the eye is smaller on the tracing: it is likely an influ¬
ence. The second method is by omission. If a certain
line is omitted from the tracing, is it omitted in the
drawing as well, or is it replaced but notably dissimi¬
lar in the drawing? For example, in the same illus¬
tration, the tracing is missing the White Rabbit’s tail.

Figure 6. Father William Balancing an Eel on

his Nos e, John Tenniel , tracing ; pencil on trac¬
ing paper, 9.9 X 7.5 mm (right); and post-publi¬
cation drawing, pencil on paper, 18.2 X 13.2 mm
(far right), both from The Berg Collection, NYPL.

In the drawing, the tail appears, but it is shaped and
placed differently. Tenniel is obviously referring back
to the drawing, not the tracing, and estimating the
tail’s proper shape and location—or in the parlance
of the artist, he’s eyeballing it. The third method is
by negligence. Occasionally, Tenniel fails to draw over
lines rubbed down from the tracing, leaving them
raw, exactly as they were from the tracing. Though
rare, they leave on the drawing an indisputable con¬
nection to the tracing, being “carbon copies” (say) of
the original.

Let’s take a deep dive into one of the illustra¬
tions and a bit of a shallower dive into another,
and an even shallower—well, a belly flop—into the
rest. The purpose here is not only to show the re¬
lationship between the drawing and the tracing but
to show as well, in a microscopic way, how Tenniel
worked. Hopefully, this will bring us a bit closer to
the artist and allow us to understand him through
the minutiae of his work.

Figure 6 shows the drawing and the tracing for the
illustration of Father William after his son remarked,
“you balanced an eel on the end of your nose.” There
are three significant omissions on the tracing. First, the
fishing line that droops down from the fishing pole is
missing. It appears on the drawing but with consider¬
ably less droop (a). Second, three birds over the eel
traps were not traced. Likewise, although they appear
in the drawing, they are in slightly different positions
(b). And third, the top sock line for the son’s outer
foot was not traced. This caused Tenniel to make a
correction, drawing the missing line over a lower but¬
ton (added in confusion) and prompting him to add
a third button above the other two, effectively mak¬
ing all three buttons higher on the drawing, although
they were correct on the tracing (c).

There are three significant deviations on the trac¬
ing. First, two lines representing the glimmering
water below the eel traps are traced more horizon¬
tally, while the other glimmer lines, unlike those in
the print, are traced short of the border where they
reach the border in the print. Both these differences
are reflected in the drawing (d). Also, a strong line
in the inaccurately traced branches produced a more
distinct branch in the drawing, not found in the print
(e). And last, the shading for the son’s forward foot is
higher in the drawing and in the tracing (f).

There is also evidence by negligence that connects
these two pieces of art. Although Tenniel traced the
bow for the son’s upper sleeve garter (on the arm in
the foreground), he failed to pencil over it on the
drawing. It appears here in its rubbed-down state only,
as a “ghost,” which explains its light appearance on
the drawing (g). When we focus in on the bow, enlarg¬
ing it, we see a perfect similarity in the contours of the
lines, which does not occur when he draws over the
rubbed lines. But we also see what makes up the lines
microscopically, their DNA, with all the inner squig-
gles caused by the particles of graphite and the fibers
of the paper. And these elements on the tracing match
speck for speck, squiggle for squiggle, those that are
on the drawing. There can be only one conclusion:
the tracing is—beyond a shadow of a doubt—guilty.

It should be made clear that what Tenniel fails to
trace does not always appear different in the drawing.
He was an artist and obviously had the skill to replace
missing characteristics accurately. For example, he
does not trace the short vertical lines on the top bar
supporting the eel baskets (h). These lines, however,
appear almost exactly as they do in the drawing.

Let’s now take a close look at Figure 7, the illustra¬
tion of the Cheshire Cat above the croquet grounds

The drawing does not have any border art, like four
others in the set. The reason Tenniel added these
“doodles ” is unknown but they almost certainly
helped collectors and sellers misclassify the drawings,
a topic that will be explored in part 2.

The evidence that the tracing was used for the drawing is shown against a shadowed mirror image of
the printed woodblock. Examples (a), (b), and (c) show a relationship through omissions, examples (d),
(e), and (f) through deviations. The last example (g) shows a relationship through negligence.

Tracing/Drawing
Printed Illustration

Figure 7 . The Executioner’s
Argument, John Tenniel, tracing,
pencil on tracing paper, 10.4 X 8.0 mm
(right); and post-publication drawing,
pencil on paper, 16.95 X 12.5 mm (far
right), both from The Berg Collection,
NYPL.

where the Executioner—with his open palm and with
the Queen’s glare upon him—is likely presenting
his argument: “that you couldn’t cut off a head un¬
less there was a body to cut it off from.” There are
three noticeable omissions on the tracing. First, on the
King’s side of the drawing, several diagonal sky lines
were not traced and likewise do not appear on the
drawing. Second, the tip of the King’s middle finger
on his forwardmost hand was not traced, and it is like¬
wise missing on the drawing. And most surprisingly,
the tracing does not have the Queen’s suspicious stare
upon the Executioner, which is true of the drawing as
well. This is odd as it seems to be one of the more
amusing aspects of the illustration. There are several
points of deviation , but we will hold ourselves to two.
On the tracing Tenniel seems to have lengthened the
forefinger of the Executioner’s forwardmost hand,
confusing it with cross-hatching lines, making it, and
the other fingers, appear somewhat longer in the

drawing. And the Queen’s brooch is traced ambigu¬
ously and appears somewhat higher in the drawing.

There are several characteristics that were not
traced but were added quite accurately. Tenniel does
not trouble himself, for example, to detail the diago¬
nal lines on the King’s robe that cover his shoulder
and outermost upper arm. Yet they are filled in with
some accuracy. Tenniel is no doubt referring back to
the drawing. Since these drawings are in reverse, he
may be using a mirror, propping the drawing up per¬
haps in a hinged V-shaped bi-frame, with the drawing
on one side and the mirror in the other.

The connection between the tracing and the
drawings can be seen in the other illustrations in the
Berg’s solander case. In the drawing of the Dormouse
being stuffed into the teapot (Figure 3), the spoon
in the cup by the Hatter’s leg was not traced ( omis¬
sion ) and appears significantly more horizontal in the
drawing. Of the two oval designs on the teapot, the

If readers would like to find other devia¬
tions from those in the article, take a look
at the Queen’s nose, the king behind the
King of Heart’s hair, and the Cat’s King-
side incisor tooth along with his tabby lines
on his forehead.

one on the Hatter’s side was not traced accurately
( deviation ) and appears noticeably bigger in the draw¬
ing. The drawing also contains some more damaging
“DNA” evidence. The head of the wheat stalk that
protrudes from the March Hare’s head, and which
points toward the Hatter, was traced and rubbed
down. But it was not drawn over ( negligence ) and only
partially erased, leaving an undisputable link to the
drawings’ source material. In the illustration of the
White Rabbit clad as a Herald (Figure 4), Tenniel
traced the paper unraveling from the scroll ambigu¬
ously ( deviation ), causing it to be a bit more unrav¬
eled in the drawing. The drawing also includes and
excludes ( omission ) the shading lines in the bow from
the tracing, not the print, even adding an extra line
across the center knot ( deviation ) only found in the
tracing. And lastly, the Hatter’s thumb holding the
bread, in the illustration of him running (to appear
in the next issue of KL ), is elongated on the tracing

( deviation ) and appears so on the drawing. His teeth
were also ambiguously traced ( deviation ) and appear
somewhat obscured in the drawing.

But the most telling connections between the
drawings and the tracings are found in the indescrib¬
able scribblings and shadings that give the drawings
texture and dimension. Tenniel can either choose to
trace these elements exactly or choose, as is often the
case, not to trace them at all. When he does choose
to trace them, they often appear to mimic the draw¬
ing but when he chooses otherwise, they are either
left out entirely or they are rendered differently. Take
for example, the scribble directly behind the hat in
the illustration of the Hatter running. The lower half
was traced and appears so on the drawing. The upper
half was not and appears altered. These elements may
be tedious to describe in the body of this paper but
they are as equal a proof as a line sagging down from
a fishing pole.

Some may argue that there is a confirmation bias
in our methodology, and that any tracing will show
some influence by chance alone. Luckily, the Berg
has one tracing for two post-publication drawings for
the Duchess in the kitchen, one in reverse and one
non-reverse. There are at least thirteen different clues
that point to a connection between the tracing and
the reverse drawing. Sadly, most of these points are te¬
dious matters. For example, the vertical shadow line in
front of Alice’s nose is curved the opposite way on the
tracing and indeed is the same in the drawing. There
is also an extra line on the tracing for the table leg
behind Alice’s posterior. This errant line produced a
very differently styled table leg on the drawing, one
that appears catty-corner to the table. But of these
thirteen differences, only one could be shown to have
influenced the non-reverse drawing at the Berg. Ten-
niel did not trace the ash shovel or small peel leaning
on the cabinet near the cat. It is rendered on the re¬
verse drawing with a squarer head and appears indeed
to be a shovel rather than a peel. On the non-reverse
drawing it is simply absent. No other connections, out¬
side of the initial thirteen, could be made between the
non-reverse illustration and the tracing, leaving only
one conclusion possible: the tracing is very highly like¬
ly to be unrelated to the drawing. 18

“sentence first-
verdict afterwards”

Now we are ready for those two bugaboos: the Mys¬
tery of the Backward Bunny and the Mystery of the
Graphite Ghosts (or The Invisibility Thereof)? When
Tenniel drew for the wood—as opposed to working
on post-publication drawings—his drawings and trac¬
ings were always non-reverse images. Always! Except
when they were not. That is, even in his real work we
have abnormalities. In the Berg Collection itself, for
example, in the volume of drawings and tracings for
Once a Week , there is a tracing that is in reverse of the
drawing and final print. Another illustration has both
the drawing and tracing in reverse, and there are two
tracings without drawings that are in reverse of the
final print. 19 Remember, all should be non-reverse im¬
ages (except for the drawing on the block, which is
ultimately destroyed). Those willing to make another
run a few blocks south will find another example of
this anomaly—perhaps too frequent to call such—in
a volume of Punch drawings in the Morgan Library.
Of the three drawings that have tracings, one trac¬
ing is in reverse of the drawing and final print. 20 Late
changes in orientation can be due either to the illus¬
tration changing from one side of a two-page spread
to the other, or to Tenniel simply having a change of
heart. Either way, if these oddities appear in his every¬
day work, why should we be concerned with them ap¬
pearing here, for his post-publication work?

The explanation for the White Rabbit’s about
face could simply be that Tenniel at first decided to
create a set of non-reverse images. If so, it would be no
coincidence that the one odd tracing is the very first
in the set, appearing chronologically first in the story,
at least. Tenniel could have created it by flipping over
a proof of the illustration and tracing it on a window
pane, in lieu of a light box. This technique is facili¬
tated by the fact that many proofs were printed on
light India paper—and we have evidence in the Berg
Collection itself of this easy-to-see-through material
being used for Wonderland and Looking-Glass proofs.

Once Tenniel had a change of heart or realized
he had made an error, he did not have to recreate his
tracing. Remember, this tracing of the White Rabbit
has no tail and a smaller eye, and we have committed
ourselves to the idea that since the tail is in a differ¬
ent location and the eye is smaller on the post-publi¬
cation drawing, this tracing must have been used; its
influence resides in the drawing. The following sce¬
nario may solve the Mystery of the Backward Bunny:
Tenniel turned over a proof of the illustration (Image
A), placed a piece of tracing paper over it and traced
it from a window (Image B), rubbed it onto a piece
of drawing paper (Image C), had a change of heart—
realizing he wanted to create reverse images—and
turned Image C over and rubbed it onto a fresh piece
of drawing paper (Image D). This method would
have produced an image in the same orientation as
the original (Image A). If this process were used, then
Paper D is our post-publication drawing, and Paper B
our tracing. Paper C is disposed of for reasons we will
see below. Depending on the paper and the pencil,
there is little loss in this generational approach, and
it can often go through other generations. 21

But what about bugaboo number two, the Graph¬
ite Ghosts (or the Invisibility Thereof)? Indeed, the
drawings are very clean, immaculate; the papers
show no signs of first having graphite rubbed down
on them. No unsightly, coarse rubbed down lines ap¬
pear on any of the drawings in the Berg or elsewhere
for that matter. The solution is even more straight¬
forward as above: rubbed down graphite merely sits
atop the paper and is easily removable with a putty
eraser, whereas graphite applied directly with a pen¬
cil is somewhat engraved in the paper and is harder
to remove with a putty eraser. What is a putty eraser,
sometimes called a kneaded eraser? As the names im¬
ply, they are doughy and a tad tacky. They allow the
artist either to rub the graphite away or gently dab the
graphite away. Since there is no eraser dust and the
graphite particles are absorbed into the eraser, art¬
ists knead the erasers to spread the particles around,
which makes the erasers reusable. Once they become
too saturated with graphite, however, they are dis¬
carded. In other words, Tenniel knew that dabbing

Figure 8. Dormouse in Teapot and The White Rabbit as Herald, John Tenniel, post¬
publication drawing, pencil on thick board, 131 X201 mm (slightly reduced), from MS
Eng 718.6(4), Houghton Library, Harvard University. The collection has two other boards
with the same artistic presentation, that is, with a complete and an incomplete drawing.

his drawings with a semi-sticky putty rubber 22 would
remove the unstable graphite weakly lying atop the
paper (tracings) but would leave the engraved graph¬
ite (drawn lines) virtually unharmed. If need be, he
could also shape the kneaded eraser into a point to
attack “ghosting” lines near delicately drawn lines. As¬
tute readers now understand why Image C above was
not kept. It was likely disposed of, or erased, because
it was just graphite sitting atop the paper and not in¬
side the paper: it was insecure, vulnerable, and had
little chance of being preserved, being easily smear-
able. 23 Admittedly, it was also redundant.

With these mysteries solved, we have all we need
in place to review Tenniel’s process for creating post¬
publication drawings.

Tracing. For reverse images, Tenniel placed a
piece of tracing paper over the drawing and traced
the front side. For non-reverse images, he either used
a second-generation rubbing or traced the backside
of a proof on a window. He traced with a high degree
of accuracy—but at times not quite perfectly—the es¬
sential outlines of the drawings. But he also copied

secondary elements such as nondescript squiggly
lines and wall shading. To alleviate an undue amount
of erasing, he would leave some elements untraced,
such as areas where cross-hatching would appear.

Transferring. For reverse images, Tenniel placed
his tracing upside down on top of his drawing paper, of
which he used many kinds, from thin to various thick
boards. Instead of going over each line with a tracing
stylus (as described in several books), it is more likely
that he swiftly brushed the whole of the tracing down
with a wide wooden burnisher, or he may even have
used his own thumbnail. For non-reverse images, he
simply repeated this process, creating a second-gener¬
ation transfer. (There is no evidence that Tenniel se¬
cured his paper down while tracing or transferring, as
art books often recommend. If he did so, he is more
likely to have done so in the former stage where it
takes more time.)

Drawing. This stage and the stages to follow are
harder to delineate and quite possibly occurred con¬
currently. Nonetheless, Tenniel likely began by draw¬
ing over the main contours of the figures, perhaps

even beginning on the face or faces. As seen above,
he drew over the traced lines with a good degree of
accuracy. Unlike drawing on wood, where he had a
bit more freedom to wander from his tracing, here
he is in facsimile mode, like his engravers, perhaps
even drawing a bit slower. He is his own forger, trac¬
ing his own signature, but trying to appear loose and
flowing.

Erasing (rubbing). To see the drawing all the better,
at this time he likely erased the “graphite ghosts” with
a kneaded eraser. As even a kneaded eraser may pick
up some delicate, lightly drawn penciled lines, Ten-
niel likely completed this task before continuing onto
the next stage.

Shading and Cross-Hatching. Now, with solid, clean,
lines before him, he began to give the drawing dimen¬
sion by adding shading and—his bread and butter—
cross-hatching. He likely continually consulted the
original (in a mirror or not), perhaps even adding
in details he failed to trace (like bunny tails). This is
where the drawing turns from a child’s play, a color¬
ing book, into a mature piece of art.

Reviewing. Given Tenniel’s personality, it is likely
that at some later time—perhaps even days later—
he put his critical eye on the drawing and added a
few deft touches here and there, before declaring
the thing complete, a masterpiece, and throwing his
pencil against the wall, and bursting out with a self-
congratulatory “Voila!”

In truth, no one has ever witnessed Tenniel per¬
forming that last stage, especially that last gesture,
but we may all be witnesses to the Shading and Cross-
Hatching stage. If we simply travel back in time, sneak
into his studio and peek over his shoulder, we can
see him busily working on a post-publication drawing
of the Dormouse being stuffed into the teapot. On
closer inspection, we can see that the main drawing
is complete and he is actually working on a side draw¬
ing, the White Rabbit as a herald (see Figure 8). Un¬
like the Berg’s faux doodles, this appears to be a full
drawing. Though it is difficult to see—with his fist in
the way—he seems to be attentively putting shading
and cross-hatching on the upper half of the rabbit.
He picks the board up and after a brief inspection de¬
clares it finished, signaled by the faintest (hardly even
a whisper) “voila.” Fortunately, he allows us to get
closer by suddenly dropping the board and running
out. Indeed, the drawing is incomplete—the rabbit’s
legs and the scroll in his hand are still mere outlines,
though he has reinforced the burnished traced lines
and cleaned them up with his putty eraser. Since this
is only a side drawing, a companion to the main draw¬
ing, he seems to have purposely left it incomplete.
Sadly, we must leave before finding out why he so
abruptly darted out of the room, as if an eerie feeling
began to creep up his spine.

[Part 2 of this article will appear in our next issue. You ’ll
discover why Tenniel created a set of twenty post-publication
drawings, how they were sold and resold, and the identity
of the first collectors to own them. — Ed]

Endnotes

1 See Justin G. Schiller, “Census: Sir John Tenniel’s
Original Drawings to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
and Through the Looking-Glass” (hereafter “Census”)
in Wonderland, An 1865 Printing Re-described and Newly
Identified as the Publisher’s “File Copy ” with a Revised and
Expanded Census of the Suppressed 1865 “Alice” Compiled by
Selwyn H. Goodacre, to Which Is Added, a Short-Title Index
Identifying and Locating the Original Preliminary Drawings
by John Tenniel for Mice and Looking-Glass Catalogued by
Justin G. Schiller (1990: The Jabberwock, Kingston, New
York). The number of known post-publication drawings
mentioned includes many not listed by Schiller.

2 See the Berol’s “copy 4” (Berol PR4611 .A7 1866b) of
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (London:
Macmillan, 1866). The Berol has what may also be the
earliest loose post-publication drawing, one not listed
in Schiller’s “Census.” It is an image of the mouse
saying, “Sit down, all of you, and listen to me!” before
commencing his “dry” tale (p. 29), inscribed “from
[T] with love, 1866” (not “1868” as the Berol catalogue
currently states).

3 John Tenniel, Album of Cartoons for “Punch, ’’Morgan
Library, accession number 2006.139. The tracings were
for “Poor Little Bill!” Punch 96, May 25, 1889, p. 251; Thank
Goodness!!! PunchQS, March 15, 1890, p. 127; and The
Autumn Meet, Punch95, November 10, 1888, p. 223. The
color is close to “Viva Gold” SW 6367, a Sherwin-Williams
shade, recommended for living rooms in coastal towns in
the southern states.

4 The illustration in the book of Alice dancing with the
Mock-Turtle and the Gryphon may have once belonged to
the set of twenty. It is on the same type of paper (unique
to the Berg), and its inclusion does bring the total to
twenty-one, exactly half of the illustrations in Wonderland.

5 Marion Harry Spielmann, The History of “Punch”

(London: Cassell, 1895), p. 464.

6 Frankie Morris, Artist of Wonderland: The Life, Political
Cartoons, and Illustrations of Tenniel (Charlottesville:
University of Virginia Press, 2005), p. 4.

7 “A modicum of latitude” refers to the possibility that
Tenniel would have sharpened his pencil more often
when drawing on wood, creating crisper cross-hatching,
whereas the drawings occasionally take advantage of the
pencil’s ability to create shade by varying the pressure.
Some poetic license is used with the word “scorper”
which sounds like the crudest of all the engraver’s tools
but is not likely to be the first used, despite being the one
for clearing out the largest areas (white space).

8 See Schiller, “Census,” pp. 55-6 for the first question, and
Percy Muir, Victorian Illustrated Books (London: Portman
Books, 1971, reprint 1985), pp. 110-11, for the second. It
is not known if Muir was the first to make this point, but
he certainly wasn’t the last.

9 John Tenniel to George Bendy, November 6, 1871, in
The Berg Collection, The New York Public Library.

10 Spielmann, The History of “Punch, ”p. 463.

11 See online, Edward Wakeling, “John Tenniel,” a chapter
in Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland & Through the
Looking-Glass (Seashell Press, 2011). This is easy to find
by simply Googling (no quotation marks): Tenniel uncut
woodblock. The block was seen in person by the author.

12 Catalogue of a Collection of Drawings for Punch Cartoons
&c. by SirJohn Tenniel , prefatory note by E. J. Milliken
([London?]: Fine Art Society, March 1895), p. 6 . The case
put forth in this paragraph was masterfully argued as well
in Frankie Morris’s biography. She uses the same Bendy
and Spielmann quotations but in a different context.

13 Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found
There [Extra-illustrated with a portrait of Tenniel, 27 proofs
of the illustrations annotated by the artist, and three ALS
from Tenniel to the Dalziels] (London: Macmillan, 1872),
pp. 102, 160. The book, at the Morgan Library, is bound in
brown morocco and has a hubbed spine with gold lettering
and floral work. Quite impressively, to fit the wide margins
of the proofs, all the pages, even those with text only, were
enlarged by paper framing.

14 The best argument for the subtlety of the collaboration,
however, would be a full presentation of the history of
the facsimile process of wood-engraving, how and why
it developed, and how it was eventually practiced. For
that, begin with William Vaughan, “Facsimile Versus
White Line: An Anglo-German Disparity,” in Reading
Victorian Illustration, 1855-1875: Spoils of the Lumber
Room, edited by Paul Goldman and Simon Cooke
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2012), pp. 33-52.
For a nonjudgmental overview of the debate about the
artistic worth of engravers, see Robert Mevrick, “‘Spoils
of the lumber-room’: Early Collectors of Wood-Engraved
Illustrations from 1860s Periodicals,” in ibid., pp. 186-91.

15 Catalogue of an Exhibition at Columbia University to
Commemorate the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of
Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), 1832-1898 (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1932), p. 8 .

16 Lewis Carroll, October 12, 1864, in Edward Wakeling,
Lewis Carroll’s Diaries: The Private Journals of Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson, vol. 5 (Luton, Beds, England: The
Lewis Carroll Society, 1999), pp. 16, 100-101.

17 John Tenniel to the Dalziel brothers, January 11, 1870, in
The Morgan Library, Accession Number: MA 8703.1.

18 Where the Berg has one tracing for two drawings,
Harvard has two tracings for one drawing, a non-reverse
image of the two fish-footmen (p. 77). William H. Bond
in his article published the drawing and the more
complete tracing (reverse), believing the two connected.
Percy Muir published the drawing and the other
tracing, one less detailed and non-reverse, believing in

a connection as well. Clearly, only one author could be
correct. Laying all atop each other in Photoshop along
with the print clearly shows Muir to be correct, and Bond
to be mistaken. Both erroneously believed, however,
that their respective tracing was of the drawing and not
created for the drawing, Bond incredibly believing so
when the tracing was even the wrong way around. See
William H. Bond, “The Publication of Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland, Harvard Library Bulletin 103, Autumn 1956:
plate III and p. 316; and Percy Muir, Victorian Illustrated
Books (London: Portman Press, 1985), p. 110.

19 See the drawings and tracings for July 30, 1859, January
28, 1860, December 7, 1961, and March 1, 1862 in Once a
Week, Berg Collection, The New York Public Library. The
volume is described as “23 original pencil drawings and

19 tracings for illustrations of various poems and stories
published in ‘Once a week,’ 1859-1864.”

20 Tenniel, Album of Cartoons for “Punch, ”in The Morgan
Library. For the illustration, see Punch 95, November 10,
1888, p. 223.

21 Artists can make reverse tracings in one step even if
the original drawing is impossible to see through. They
simply lay a piece of tracing paper on top of a piece of
transfer paper (with the graphite side face up) and place
the original atop the two. (If they want to protect the
original, they can even lay a piece of tracing paper over
it.) This produces a reverse tracing (and another tracing,
non-reverse, if they decided to protect the drawing). It is
unlikely Tenniel used this method with the White Rabbit,
however, as it appears too similar to all the other tracings
in the set.

22 In lieu of a kneaded rubber, Tenniel could have used
a wad of bread—perfectly tacky. Art manuals even in
his time recommended bread or “crumb of bread” for
erasing, exactly what was used before the discovery of
rubber. The earliest mention of a marketed kneaded
rubber found for this article is from 1882, though it
could be more than a century late. See, for example,
Henry O’Neill, How to Use the Black Lead Pencil, Chalks,
and Water Colours... (London: George Rowney, 1861),
pp. 2, 3, 60; and Aaron Penley, A System of Water Color
Painting..., (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1879, Thirty-
Eighth London Edition), pp. 22, 32, 36, 44, and 52. Also
see Aaron Penley, A System of Water Colour Painting: Book
& Catalog (London: Winsor & Newton, 1882), p. 50.

23 This explains why only one tracing per drawing ever
appears to survive. If having a change of heart as to the
orientation, Tenniel could either trace the backside
from a window or do the “three generation” approach.
The second generation is not considered collectible as
it is too weak to be preserved and is either erased or
discarded.

Leaves piocn
rbe Deaneny Ganden

Thanks for unearthing the “new”
Lewis Carroll anagram puzzle that
appeared in KL 99:19. Ever ready
to rise to a challenge, I was piqued
by the Editor’s comment that no
other answers had been found
to the five challenges, to search
instead for other challenges that
could produce further anagram-
matical answers from the same
root (NOW, I THINK). I was sur¬
prised to find many options sur¬
facing, and I found the following
ten new candidates with somewhat
reasonable readings:

What was Alice Liddell’s plea to
Lewis Carroll after returning from
the storytelling rowing trip? (INK
HIT NOW)

How would Lewis Carroll describe
himself if Twitter had been in¬
vented for writing poetry? (THIN
WONK, I)

What did the Sheep say when Alice
asked her to include her kitten’s
portrait in the knitting design?
(KNIT WHO IN?)

What did the Dodo say after “all
must have prizes”? (THO’ KIN
WIN)

What did the Baker say about the
Bellman’s physique? (I KNOW
THIN)

What was the secret rule for con¬
veying to the batters how to rig the
croquet game? (HIT ON WINK)

What did Tweedledee say to Twee¬
dledum in exasperation after the
battle? (OH, TWIN KIN!)

What did the up-and-coming head¬
line writer say he most liked to do?
(WIN HOT INK)

How did the Dutch Lullaby chil¬
dren in the Wooden Shoe spend
the evening? (HOT WINKIN’)

How do you play the flugelhorn
game? (HONK IT, WIN)

Christopher Tyler

As your readers may know, Ever-
type has published translations of
Alice and Looking-Glass into more
than 50 languages, with some 50

more in various stages of progress.
I recently received the text in
Western Armenian (we have the
book in Eastern Armenian), and
recently I recruited a translator
into Fife Scots. We’re consider¬
ing translations into Venetian
and Akkadian, and are also in
communication with a Quechua
translator—so translation progress
continues.

I am moving my publishing
house from Ireland to Dundee,
Scotland, to be near a professor
at the university in Dundee who is
working with me on Blissymbols, a
pictorial language. I have a trans¬
lation of Alice into Blissymbols in
process. The language has proven
to be of great value for those af¬
flicted with cerebral palsy, allowing
them to communicate.

The reason for the move was to
improve my quality of life. I need
to live in a city, and the only one
in Ireland that is of interest is far,
far too expensive to live in. I have
been working with the Blissymbol

group for about 19 years, and
some of my colleagues are here
in Dundee. The whole project
for translating Alice into Bliss also
involves developing a typeface
and getting Bliss encoded in Lim¬

it’s a Wonderland where everyone
is Alice

Where the ladies room is bigger
than a palace,

At the Roxy Music Hall . . .

Rodgers and Hart, “At the Roxy
Music Hall, ’’from I Married an
Angel, 1938

I myself had great difficulties with
the letter C . . . Lewis Carroll,
Joseph Conrad, Coleridge.

Jeanette Winterson, Why Be
Happy When You Could Be
Normal?, Jonathan Cape, 2011

>gj&

The secondary literature on Car-
roll and the Alice books—vast, and
mostly more nonsensical than the
stories themselves—tells us much
about the commentators from
generation to generation. Like¬
wise, commentators have found
real-life, or rather real dead, hat¬
ters, who died as Victorian hatters
tended to, of mercury poisoning
—symptoms of which included
rushing manically about stuffing
bits of bread and butter in their
mouths.

A. N. Wilson, The Victorians,

W. W. Norton & Company, 2003

- ft -

[It will be] a kind of wonder book
a la Alice in Wonderland. Weary of
Armageddon. I fled as far away
from it as I could. You’ll find
the sea in it. . . romantic galle¬
ons, wild dark coasts, enchanted
surges, palaces on the ocean floor.
Henry Beston, quoted in Daniel
Payn’s Orion on the Dunes, A
Biography of Henry Beston,
David R. Godine, 2016.

code. The Bliss translation could
be used as part of a PhD thesis I
could write, if we are able to find
funding. (I don’t need a PhD for
my career, but Bliss needs a thesis
“proving” that Bliss is a proper

- m -

The special qualities of playfulness
in [Alexander] Calder—his love of
soft water and small wind, of the
safe outdoors, of imaginary ani¬
mals easily tamed—belong to a dis¬
tinctive thread of modern art, the
kind that William Empson, in his
great discussion of childhood and
play in the Alice books, called “the
child as swain,” reanimating na¬
ture with unconscious poetic wis¬
dom more than with innocence.
Adam Gopnik, ‘How Alexander
Calder Made Art Move, ” The New
Yorker, December 4, 201 7

- ft -

Lewis Carroll let you murder,
bully, and impose your will system¬
atically on people, animals, land¬
scapes, and vocabularies.

Margo Jefferson, Negroland: A
Memoir, Pantheon Books, 2015

- m -

[Ralph Steadman] soldiered on,
becoming unhinged in the way
a great artist should be. He illus¬
trated the works of Lewis Carroll
... in a death-head’s style that
gave Tenniel and Rackham a
run for the money; Steadman’s
Cheshire cat wears what can fairly
be described as an existentialist
Werner Herzog smile.

Warren Hinckle, Who Killed
Hunter S. Thompson?, Last
Gasp, 2017, describing why he

language, to help it compete with
less robust systems used by some
disabled people.)

Cheers,

Michael Everson

(Hinckle) first thought of pairing
Steadman and Thompson for an
article for Scanlan’s Monthly
magazine, June 1970, which gave
birth to “gonzo ” and an immortal
collaboration.

- m -

Beware, however, the effect that
covering Hollywood so ruthlessly
can have on a journalist’s person¬
ality. [Gossip columnist Hedda]
Hopper became so warped by it,
she was tempted to call her mem¬
oirs Malice in Wonderland.

Tim Stanley, ‘ Babylon’s
Conscience: The Dying Art of
Hollywood Gossip, And Why We
Need It Now More Than Ever, ”

The Telegraph (UK), March 15,
2018

- m -

Modern equivalents [of deus ex
machina] are the cavalry arriving,
sundry accidents and diseases, or
the heroine waking up to discover
it was a dream. I can still remem¬
ber the shocked disappointment
of reading Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland for the first time. Oh
no! How could you do this to me, I
wanted to cry. You can’t paint your
character into a corner and then
deny the existence of walls and
floors.

Nigel Watts, Write a Novel and
Get It Published, Teach Yourself,
2012

Alice was beginning to get very
tired of all this sitting by herself
with nothing to do: every so often
she tried again to read the book in
her lap, but it was made up almost
exclusively of long paragraphs,

4 1

and no quotation marks whatso¬
ever, and what is the point of a
book, thought Alice, that does not
have any quotation marks?

Lisa Halliday, opening lines of
Asymmetry, Simon & Schuster,
2018

- X -

A white rabbit carrying a pocket
watch had woken Freddy up one
morning by bemoaning his tardi¬
ness, and just yesterday, four chil¬
dren had turned up looking for a
magic lion.

Kari Maaren, Weave a Circle
Round, A Tor Book, Tom Doherty
Associates, New York, 201 7

- m -

Shopping [at AliExpress] feels like
playing croquet with a flamingo
or swimming in a pool filled with
tears—bizarre but special.

Alice Hines, ‘AliExpress, ” The
New York Times Magazine,

April 15, 2018

- ft -

“One sometimes got the impres¬
sion that the closing scene of the
Mad Hatter’s tea party was being
performed, with Louis in the role
of the dormouse being stuffed into
the teapot,” thought Hilton.
Miranda Carter, Anthony Blunt:
His Lives, Macmillan, 2001

- m -

As the weeks passed, the frumious
language that his supporters used
all sounded more and more like
the outcry of people sure that they
would be cheated of their due.
Mark Wahlgren Summers, The
Ordeal of the Reunion, UNC
Press, 2014

- M -

The woman in the back seat was
enormous; he couldn’t figure out
how she had ever managed to get
in. She was wrapped and swathed
in shawls and she had on a hat
which reminded him of the White
Queen in Alice, only it was bigger.
Walter R. Brooks, Freddy the Pilot,
Alfred A. Knopf 1952

- X -

[Humpty Dumpty] had been wear¬
ing a tuxedo with a cravat—or
cummerbund, it was impossible to
say which.

Jasper Fforde, The Big Over Easy:
A Nursery Crime, Viking, 2005

- x -

Prosopagnosia is a rare form of
visual agnosia characterised by
impaired recognition of famil¬
iar faces (or equivalent stimuli).

... [In Looking-glass,] Humpty
Dumpty reports an inability to
recognise a familiar face, yet is
able to recognise eyes, nose, and
mouth and their correct positions
... Humpty Dumpty’s account
seems to indicate preserved com-
ponential but impaired configural
processing. There is also a sugges¬
tion that Humpty Dumpty might
be able to use extraneous informa¬
tion to assist in facial recognition,
his example being two eyes on one
side of the nose or the mouth at
the top of the face.

A. J. Lamer, ‘Lewis Carroll’s
Humpty Dumpty: An Early Report
of Prosopagnosia ? ”, Journal of
Neurology, Neurosurgery, &
Psychiatry, August 2004

- x -

The fantastic tale may suspend the
laws of physics—carpets fly; cats
fade into invisibility leaving only
a smile—and of probability— the
youngest of three brothers always
wins the bride; the infant in the
box cast upon the waters survives
unharmed—but it carries its revolt
against reality no further; Math¬
ematical order is unquestioned.
Two and one make three, in Kos¬
chei’s castle and Alice’s Wonder¬
land (especially in Wonderland).
Euclid’s geometry— or possibly
Riemann’s—somebody’s geometry
anyhow—governs the layout. Oth¬
erwise incoherence would invade
and paralyze the narrative.

Ursula K. LeGuin, At Doesn’t
Have to Be the Way It Is,” No
Time to Spare, Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 2017

- x -

[We were in Nicaragua] in a sod¬
den little village of the delta called
Barro de Colorado. This was
beastly, the air was almost solid
with insects, and we felt quite lost
in the remote, desolate, sharky
place. Joan and I found two horses
and went for rides along the reefs
between the jungle and the sharks,
splashing through the inlets and
longing for the spikes with which
the White Knight equipped his
charger’s fetlocks, indispensable
for horsemen in these parts.

Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Life in
Letters, New York Review Books,
2017

- x -

But she didn’t like being fixed
up and straightened out, warning
Brooks, “I am apt to use what may
appear to be a curious inversion
of words or phrases”—her brine-
soaked jabberwocky—“but for
the most part these are peculiar
to my style and I don’t want them
changed.”

Jill Lepore, “The Right Way to
Remember Rachel Carson, ” The
New Yorker, March 26, 2018

- M -

To paraphrase the Mad Hatter,
Americans eat what they see, and
what they see is more likely to be
a 140-character tweet than a two-
thousand-word newspaper article.
Susan Jacoby, The Age of
American Unreason in a
Culture of Lies, Pantheon, 2008

“Well, I hope they will be very
happy,” sighed Dum when we were
discussing the matter while we lay
on our closely packed cots the first
night of Mr. Gordon’s visit.

“It does seem terribly unroman¬
tic for the separation to have been
caused by the Lobster Quadrille.”

“It might have been a perma¬
nent separation if it had been just
plain lobster, ’specially in cans,”
said funny Mary Flannigan.

Nell Speed, Vacation with the
Tucker Twins, A. L. Burt, 1915

- 31 -

[Kenneth Grahame] not only
continued to honour the obliga¬
tions imposed by the hierarchy
of family and society, but in some
sense actively needed them; and
thus two powerful elements were
permanently at conflict in him.

He compromised: outwardly he
conformed with his society. But his
inner self took revenge in satire
and fantasy: at first openly, then by
more oblique and subtle methods.
Like Lear and Carroll, he found re¬
lief in the world of childhood, the
animal fable, the potent symbols.

Peter Green, Kenneth Grahame,

A Biography, John Murray, 1959

- m -

It is nonsensical, but calculated
nonsense, a sort of Alice in Won¬
derland letter, never mere blather,
but a work of stunning, charming,
goofy intelligence.

Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Mozart’s
Starling, Little Brown, 2017

- m -

The naming of the yacht was not
the least of our difficulties. Friends
were prolific with Petrels and Sea

Birds’, they even dared White Wings
and Sea Wolves, not to mention
Calls of the Wild. Jack [London]
recalled Mr. Lewis Carroll’s The
Hunting of the Snark, and held that
name up as a warning induce¬
ment for better suggestions. Such
were not forthcoming, and when
we sailed for Hawaii, the elliptic
American stern bore the gilded
inscription:

SNARK

SAN FRANCISCO
Charmian London, The Log of
the Snark, Macmillan, 1915

Christ Church holds three distinct
collections of material relating to
Lewis Carroll, aka Charles Lud-
widge Dodgson.

Splash page of (( The Lewis Carroll
Collection ” digitization project at
the Christ Church, Oxford, website
(page 64). You’d think they, of all
places on Earth, would know how
to spell his middle name. (Since
corrected.)

I invited her in and picked up
the envelope. Inside, there was a
card with an illustration from Alice
through the Looking Glass and the
words “non-WEDDING invitation”
in embossed letters.

Guillermo Martinez, The Oxford
Murders, MacAdam/Cage, 2003

- is -

Besides its gently transcendent
presence, the most astonishing
thing about a Swainson’s Thrush
is the male’s song. The Swainson’s
Thrush sings in a swirling upward
spiral, sings the sound that would
accompany Alice as she falls
through the looking glass, if she
were falling up into Wonderland.
Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Rare
Encounters with Ordinary
Birds, Sasquatch Books, Seattle,
2001

Hannah Becker-
Uncapher
Thomas A. Costa
Harry Greer
Chloe Hamilton
Peter Harris
Markus Lang

Susan D. Radovsky
Dana Richards
Clare Sherman
Nicole B. Soboleski
Jeffrey Thomas
Maureen W. Vavra

Mark Samuels Lasner
Ron Maas
Michael Miceli

r jje V?t irin< *

OF STEPHANIE LOVETT

C ONGRATULATIONS to the Knight Letter on
its 100 th issue! My birthday wish for it would
be to be able to send a copy of this issue
through a time portal to the founding members of
the Society, so that they could see what they had set
in motion back in 1974. Not that the transmogrifica¬
tion from a two-sheet newsletter to a sixty-plus page
magazine would necessarily surprise them—it’s easy
to imagine founding president
Stan Marx just nodding and saying,

“I knew that there was this much
knowledge and energy out there
among Carroll collectors, scholars,
and enthusiasts—that’s why I start¬
ed the Society!”

Even so, it is truly remarkable
to have had such a quantity of in¬
formation and very high-quality
work published over the past four decades. I can’t be¬
gin to feature here any particular few of the many im¬
portant articles that have seen the light of day thanks
to the existence of the Knight Letter. The depth and
breadth of Carroll studies would have looked very dif¬
ferent without it, or even if it had remained a brief
newsletter. Similarly, the evolution of the meeting re¬
port to its present level of detail has given the Knight
Letter an important role in fulfilling the mission of the
LCSNA. Since presenting programs of talks is half of
our raison d’etre , along with our scholarly publications
such as the Pamphlets series, preserving these pro¬
grams in print is essential.

Over its hundred issues, the Knight Letter has also
published a wealth of otherwise ephemeral informa¬
tion about products, performances, publications, and
all the endless manifestations of Carroll and Alice
throughout the culture. That has meant that there
was no need for a Society member to miss a funny car¬
toon, exhibition catalogue, or mention of Carroll on
Jeopardy! at the time, but it also means that there’s now
an accumulation of research material that would oth¬
erwise have been lost to anyone wanting to do work
on Alice in advertising, fine porcelains, and perhaps
other items undreamt of before browsing through
the KL archive.

One of those categories might be a meta-inter¬
est in the evolution of Carroll studies or even the
Society itself. I was taken by surprise to see a notice
from an issue exactly 25 years ago inviting people to
join Joel Birenbaum’s Alice in Wonderland Collec¬
tors’ Network, including a physical address to send
correspondence to. Not that I hadn’t known about
it at the time—but now I see that very network, with
its 11,000 members, sharing infor¬
mation whenever I glance at Face-
book. Another serendipitous find
is my own report in issue 33 on the
1989 International Carroll Confer¬
ence at Christ Church, an example
of the kind of key event in the build¬
ing of the Carroll community that
the Knight Letter has captured (plus
a personal happy memory), even
without the extra layer of having had USC-meeting
speaker Linda Gray-Moin show a photo from that
conference in her talk this past spring, and credit it
as the beginning of her own Carroll pursuits.

So, hail to the Knight Letter , and to its many
hard-working editors and section editors, past and
present! An outstanding way to celebrate would be
to do what I just did, which is to dip into the digi¬
tized archive (link on the KL page of our
website) and enjoy stumbling upon
treasures large and small. Whether
you’ve been in the LCSNA for
years and get
catapulted
down memory
lane or you’ve
joined more
recently and ev¬
erything in the
back issues is new to
you, I guarantee
you a festive jaunt.

(All right, one
more blast from the
past: In 1978, then-pres¬
ident Peter Heath recom¬
mended some “beautifully

made” rubber stamps as “instant attention-getters and great
fun to use on correspondence”and gave the full mailing ad¬
dress member of Andrew Ogus, who was then working in a
bookstore that sold them. Longer-time Carrollians now
have a big smile, imagining the improbable image of
Peter Heath enjoying stamping his letters, as well as
rejoicing in this off-hand mention forty years ago of
our wonderful current KL designer, Andrew Ogus.)

As always, I will close this column by looking for¬
ward. The next meeting is coming up sooner than
usual, on September 22, to coincide with an exhibi¬
tion at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York.
The Society has met at and visited the Morgan over
the decades of our existence, because of its outstand¬
ing Carroll holdings—I hope you were able to see
their Alice 150 show in 2015. This, however, is some¬
thing else entirely. We will be meeting on the clos¬
ing weekend of their Medieval Monsters exhibition,
which became an inspirational bridge to thinking
about monsters in the worlds of Lewis Carroll. Who in
Wonderland and Looking-Glass Land isn 7 a monster
in some sense? What about the Snark? Don’t forget

the poor little ghost of Phantasmagoria). It suddenly
seems hard to consider Carroll without talking about
what it means to confront monsters—creatures who
aren’t human yet demand to be regarded as persons,
fantastical beasts who may not believe in us, alien
strangers who mirror and mock us. Among our ex¬
pected speakers are noted children’s literature expert
Michael Patrick Hearn, New Yorker staff writer and cul¬
tural commentator Adam Gopnik, educator Cindy
Watter on Phantasmagoria , and scholar Matt Demakos
on the Jabberwock. The day’s events are currently
in development, so make your travel plans now and
keep checking our website and social media for up-to-
date details on speakers and details. Looking forward
to seeing many, many of you there—and although a
hundred issues of the Knight Letter constitute a truly
monumental representation of forty-four years of the
LCSNA, there’s nothing like spending the day with
other Carrollians. If you’ve never done that, then this
will be a fine meeting to be reminiscing about in de¬
cades to come as having been your first!

''‘Speedburvip" by t>ave Poverty, February lo, golds'

0KOTS&(

^10

ALL MUST HAVE PRIZES

MATT CRANDALL

I n our last episode, we talked at length
about movie posters—domestic movie
posters. Let’s now travel the world and visit
the amazing, colorful, and frustrating category of
foreign movie posters. As mentioned last time, here
in the U.S., the vast majority of movie posters were
distributed by National Screen Service, an indepen¬
dent distribution company that managed all movie
promotional material for nearly 60 years, bringing
order from chaos and standardizing poster sizes. Oh,
how the foreign poster collector longs for something
like that. But there is hope: there are many online re¬
sources that provide lots of information on the sizes,
shapes, and names of the multitude of foreign post¬
ers. But they ain’t perfect. Three good examples are
Learn About Movie Posters, Cinemasterpieces, and
eMovieposter.

Let’s begin our journey in jolly old England, shall
we? After all, that’s where Alice is from! I have very
little information on the original material from Eng¬
land, since, for whatever reason, original British Dis¬
ney Alice material is very difficult to come by. But I do
know that the posters themselves come in two fairly
standard sizes: the quad and the double crown. There
are other sizes, much rarer sizes—but these two are
usually made for every release. A quad is similar to a

U.S. 1-sheet, approximately 30"x40", but in
landscape orientation rather than portrait.
I’ve only ever seen one in my life, and it was
sold in the UK a few years back, without my even
knowing about it at the time. The double crown, a
smaller portrait poster, is 20"x30". I’ve never seen
one. The English also have a version of lobby cards—
what they call Front of House cards—which are the
size of a U.S. still photo, approximately 8"xl0". The
Alice set contains a total of eight FOH cards.

Moving across the channel to France, I am famil¬
iar with two sizes again: the petite affichette , which is
approximately 23"x31" in size, and the grande affiche ,
which is approximately 47"x63". I have seen three in
total of these sizes, one style of petite and two different
styles of grande. Again, there are other rarer sizes, but
I have never come across any to date. What is interest¬
ing about the petite is that it is by a fairly well-known
European poster artist, Boris Grinsson, and that this
exact art is used in the German poster called an A1
(that’s way easier to remember). The only difference
from the French petite (other than the language) is
the size, with the A1 being 23"x33", so only a little
taller. All the other German sizes are similarly named
(A2, A3, AO, etc.), but I’ve never seen any.

English Front of House (FOH) cards

Continuing our haphazard journey across Eu¬
rope takes us to Italy. Italy made some of the most
beautiful movie posters for the Alice release, in my
very personal opinion. Let’s start with the fotobusta
(sometimes anglicized as photobusta). These are like
large lobby cards or small half-sheets. Over the years
their size has changed, but at the time of the original
Alice release, they were approximately 14"x20", and
the Alice set has a total of 12, of which I’ve seen 11.

There also exists another size, supposedly from
later decades, but of which I’ve seen two styles. Since
they seem to be an anomaly, I have given them my
own name: jumbo fotobusta. In the late 1950s the
size increased to 18"x26", and these two are that size,
but they are clearly from the initial release, so I don’t
know what else to call them. But they are pretty!

There are more traditionally sized Italian posters
too. The counterpart to our 1-sheet is called a 2-fogli
and is 39"x55".

There are also foglio (smaller at 28"x39") and 4 -fo-
gli (55"x78"), but those are less common although I

have seen a 4 -fogli, and it is probably my favorite post¬
er of all—I wish I owned it.

Continuing our trip through Europe, I have
seen posters from Spain, the former Czechoslovakia,
Denmark, Sweden (in 3 sizes), Poland, Belgium, and
Greece.

Outside of Europe, I have seen posters from Aus¬
tralia, Argentina, and Japan. The Australian poster
(called a daybill) resembles our figure. There are
bound to be others, as the world is vast. Most coun¬
tries that produced posters also produced heralds,
but that topic is for another time.

Most of the foreign posters in our collection are
currently on display in the ACMI (Australian Centre
for the Moving Image) Wonderland exhibition in
Melbourne, Australia, through October 7, 2018, and
were previously on display at the Geppi Exhibition in
2016-2017 in Baltimore, MD. For more images and
details on posters mentioned here, visit vintagedis
neyalice.blogspot.com.

Clockwise from
upper left:
French Petite
Afpchette, Ital¬
ian 4-fogli, Ger¬
man Al, Polish
poster, Italian
Jumbo Foto¬
busta style B

Arcane Illustrators:

Jan Svankmajer

MARK BURSTEIN WITH ADRIANA PELIANO

hat? Svankmajer “arcane”? Didn’t he
do one of the greatest of all Wonderland
films, 1988’s darkly lovely Neco z Alenky,
aka Alice? Well, yes, but did you know he also illustrat¬
ed both Alice books in 2006 with his surreal drawings
and collages? Probably not, as they were only pub¬
lished with the text in Japanese, 1 not even in Czech as
one might presume. Besides, it is not altogether inap¬
propriate to use the adjective “arcane” (mysterious,
obscure, esoteric) when speaking about his oeuvre.

Svankmajer is a creative artist in many media.
Born in Prague in 1934, his first childhood love was
puppetry, which he later studied at the Academy
of Performing Arts in Prague ( Akademie muzickych
um m v Praze , AMU). He then worked professionally
at various multimedia theaters, eventually founding
the short-lived Theater of Masks ( Divadlo masek).
From around 1968 on, he became a dedicated sur¬
realist, joining the Czechoslovakian Surrealist Group
(Skupina surrealistic v CSR). His art was by and large
suppressed by the Soviets beginning with their take¬
over in 1968 and only became widely known—mainly
on the basis of his films—after the fall of the Soviet
Union in 1991.

He was married to Eva Svankmajerova, nee
Dvorakova, a surrealist painter, ceramicist, and writer
who worked with him on several of his movies, including
art-directing Alice and making three lovely posters for it.
Before her death in 2005, they collaborated on a Car-
rollian exhibition for Japan, Alice or Pleasure Principle,
which took place in 2007. 2

Aside from his cinematic work, 3 Svankmajer is to
this day a serious visual artist, making ceramics, col¬
lages, assemblages of found material, sculpture, etch¬
ings, drawings, poems, taxidermic objets d’art, and
Kunstkammern (cabinets of curiosities). These endeav¬
ors are well documented in Gerald Matt’s book The
Universe of Jan Svankmajer.

Svankmajer’s wildly entertaining, most unusual
Alice illustrations are in a world of their own. Here’s
Adriana’s take, from her “Alicedelic Collages: Pic¬
tures in Conversation” talk at the “Illustrating Alice”
symposium at the Alice 150 gathering in 2015:

Jan Svankmajer illustrated Alice’s adventures

through pictures in conversation that reinvent

the worlds imagined by Lewis Carroll with a
freedom to propose their own puzzles and
paradoxes. We travel with Alice in an imaginary
forest where things lose their commonsense
names. There we meet chimeras and composite
creatures in collages and drawings that have
hybrid identities emerging from underground,
archaic, and strange worlds. Alice’s body meta¬
morphoses between found imagery of biology
and botany, mutating cells, dolls, Victorian illus¬
trations, Japanese iconography, Czech puppetry,
toys, games, sexual symbols, and other curiosi¬
ties from a very arcane cabinet of wonders.

Portmanteaux produce displacements and
unusual associations, and in Looking-Glass, lin¬
guistic experiments inhabit toves, mome raths,
borogoves, bread-and-butterflies. Assembled
words challenge assembled monsters, enigmatic
beings composed of different species, in a
phantasmagoria of textures, fragmentations, jux¬
tapositions, and unexpected surrealist encoun¬
ters. When the caterpillar asks, “Who are you?”
Svankmajer multiplies Alices which invite us to
adventure in inexhaustible dreams, always dar¬
ing the impossible. “Ah, that’s the great puzzle!”

Svankmajer’s introduction, translated from his hand¬
written Czech note reproduced in the Japanese edi¬
tions, is as follows:

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is one of the
key works that our civilization has produced.

It is one of the books you have to have on a
desert island to survive. Dozens of genera¬
tions of children with no firm grounding have
been brought up on it. And I am no exception.
Furthermore, it is not just a children’s book.

On the contrary: it offers proof that there is no
such thing as specific “art for children”—that is
just a retail trick. We can only guess and argue
whether this or that book (or picture or film)
is suitable for children or not. Lewis Carroll’s
Alice in Wonderland can be read aany age, and
it will always be a book that is “different.” After
all, we have dreams throughout our lives. Lewis
Carroll’s books about Alice are not fairy tales—

4 s

they are dreams. There is a major difference
between dreams and fairy tales. Fairy tales have
an educational aspect, to a lesser or greater
extent, but there are no morals to dreams—they
are a pure “wonderland” of freedom. They
have their own logic, but do not respect any
rational rules. And that is exactly how Lewis
Carroll wrote his books. I have been striving to
measure up to that inspiration all my life. The
films Jabberwocky [1971], Do shlepa (“Down to the
Cellar” [1983]), 5 and NecozAlenky, (“Alice”)
and now the illustrations for the book have
given me a canvas on which to attempt that.

I have also tried to pay tribute in my illus¬
trations to John Tenniel, the first illustrator of
Lewis Carroll’s books. I have used some of his
motifs, but I have also “quoted” directly from
him, especially in the introductory black-and-
white drawings. I feel that Tenniel’s illustra¬
tions fit hand in glove with Carroll’s text.

The way I constantly return to Alice shows
how the books offer me inexhaustible inspira¬
tion (as does childhood in general for that
matter), but also because none of my creations
has fully satisfied me. That goes for these il¬
lustrations too. One of these days I am going
to have to make myself some time, sit down
with my pencil and start all over again. 6

When one thinks of prominent Czech A lice illustrators,
the name Marketa Prachaticka usually comes to mind
(Dusan Kallay being Slovak). Her book came out in
German (Illgner, 1982), Czech (Albatros, 1983), and
English (Wellington, 1989). Would that some enlight¬
ened publisher would issue Svankmajer’s work in an
English-language edition!

[Sometimes wishes do come true. Very recently, Athanor
has done exactly that, and all copies bought from them are
signed by Jan. They also sell the three Eva Svankmajerova
posters of his Alice in Czech, German, and English; the
book Jan Svankmajer by Bruno Solar ik (bilingual: Czech/
English), signed by Jan; the DVD o/Neco z Ale nky {in
Czech, with English and French subtitles); his other films
and posters; etchings; and many other delights. Visit www.
athanor.cz, aka svankmajerjan.coml ]

Endnotes

1 'F/qaISO [Ml O l 7 U X [Arisu in Wonderland], published
by Esquire Magazine Japan in 2006, has an ISBN of 978-
4872951059; a 2011 reprint by Kokusho Kankokai, 978-
4336053466; Esquire’s companion volume WzCDSOj 7 U
X [Arisu in Looking-Glass Land] is 978-4872951073; the
2011 Kankokai reprint 978-4336053473.

2 The catalog was published by Esquire Japan, ISBN 978-
4872951127.

3 See his illuminating essay “Alice in Film” in Illustrating
Alice (Artists’ Choice, 2013).

4 Bilingual (German and English) edition (Verlag fur
moderne Kunst, 2016).

5 Both viewable on YouTube.

6 Translation by Tomedes Smart Human Translation, here
published in English for the first time, with the kind
permission and approval of Jan Svankmajer.

- m -

WHOSE ALICE ARE YOU?

English actress Camilla Power, born in Ireland in
1976, was the uncredited voice of Alice in the Eng¬
lish version of Svankmajer’s film. Twelve at that time,
she has gone on to a long career in British television,
lasting to this day.

3ti iffilcmonam

David H. Schaefer

LCSNA Founding Member (Sr’Former President
September 17, 1924 —January 14, 2018

Remembered by
August A. Imholtz,Jr.

D avid Schaefer, a friend
of over four decades to
Clare and myself, as well
as to so many members of our So¬
ciety, passed away at the age of 93
in his home in Silver Spring, Mary¬
land. He had suffered a massive
stroke on New Year’s Day, and it is a
fitting coincidence that David died
on the same date as did Lewis Carroll, the au¬
thor to whom he devoted so much of his life.

The Schaefer Collection began in 1892
when David’s mother, Mabel Hutzler, received,
on her sixth birthday, a copy of Through the Look¬
ing-Glass. This became the nucleus of the Schae¬
fer Collection, which is surely the oldest con¬
tinuous collection of Carrolliana held in private
hands except for those of the Dodgson descen¬
dants. David’s maternal grandfather owned the
largest department store in Baltimore, Hut¬
zler’s, founded in 1858, and on his buying trips
to Europe he often picked up foreign-language
editions of the Alice books for his daughter. Af¬
ter David’s parents died, he inherited the col¬
lection, and his wife, Maxine, even bought a
Spanish Alice on their honeymoon in Mexico.
In addition to their collection of books, how¬
ever, David and Maxine amassed the finest and
most complete collection of Alice films, begin¬
ning with the 1903 ten-minute Cecil Hepworth
silent movie.

In 1982 David and Maxine traveled to Lon¬
don to join Anne Clark, Dodgson family mem¬
bers, and representatives of the British Lewis
Carroll Society for the December 17th unveil¬
ing of the Lewis Carroll Memorial Stone in
Poet’s Corner in the south transept of Westmin¬
ster Abbey. With Maxine and, after her death,
with his second wife, Mary, David visited Eng¬

land many times on pilgrimage to
many Carroll sites, most recently
to the location of the original Hep-
worth studios. Here in the United
States, David cohosted three LC¬
SNA semiannual meetings in the
Washington, D.C. area, and over
the years gave a number of talks
on and showings of the Alice films
at our meetings, at the Smithsonian Institu¬
tion, and at the University of Maryland. David
and Mary organized our 2009 LCSNA meeting
in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which had been the
American movie capital before Hollywood be¬
came Hollywood (KL 83:5).

After Maxine died in October of 1996, Da¬
vid set up the Maxine Schaefer Memorial Out¬
reach Program to honor her and simultaneous¬
ly to do something for children. For Maxine,
who had diligently served as the Society’s sec¬
retary for twenty years, had often lamented that
there were never any children involved in this
Society dedicated to the world’s foremost chil¬
dren’s author. The “something” became a dra¬
matic reading of a chapter, usually “The Mad
Tea Party,” for a class of schoolchildren, often
third or fourth graders, in the cities where we
met for our semiannual gatherings. Each of the
children receives a copy of an Alice book with
a bookplate honoring Maxine. David discussed
highlights of the past twenty years of readings
in an illustrated talk at our Fall 2017 meeting at
the University of Delaware.

The story of how David and Maxine be¬
came founding members of the Society is one
of almost Carrollian indirection. It all started
on January 9, 1972, with the Indiana patholo¬
gist Dr. Lall Montgomery, when he wrote to
Stan Marx: “I am reminded that I have just had

5 °

a note from a chap who turned up as a fellow
collector through a mutual friend at a recent
meeting.” The chap, who lived in Silver Spring,
Maryland, was of course David Schaefer. The
“friend” was David’s cousin George, also a pa¬
thologist. Dr. Montgomery then sent David and
Maxine the name and address of Anne Clark,
cofounder of the (at that time, still relatively
new) Lewis Carroll Society in England. In 1973,
the Schaefers traveled to London, where they
met Anne Clark and other members of the Brit¬
ish Society, and learned about Stan Marx, an
advertising executive and Carroll collector on
Long Island, who was trying to establish a sister
society in America. David and Maxine visited
Stan and Diana Marx later that year and be¬
came part of the small working group of Carroll
collectors and enthusiasts who wanted to form a
satellite of the British Society—until Arthur A.
Houghton Jr. disabused them of that idea. And
so at a meeting on January 12-13, 1974, at Princ¬
eton University, the independent Lewis Carroll
Society of North America was founded.

As much as David liked the two Alice books
and, of course, The Hunting of the Snark, it was
Carroll’s Symbolic Logic that fascinated him and
led to his lifelong career in computers. After
completing a degree in physics at Tulane Uni¬
versity in New Orleans, David joined the Naval
Research Laboratory in 1949. Four years later,
at his insistence, he was assigned to Project Van¬
guard—the first American satellite effort. The
head of the project visited David’s team one day
and told them, “We need a telemetry system
that weighs less than four pounds.” David and
his group said, “We can make that”; they waited
until the director left the room and then ran to
the dictionary to look up the word “telemetry.”
Not only did they produce it, but it weighed less
than eight ounces and used so little current that
it did not need to be turned off. Many satellite
successes followed, urged on by President Eisen¬
hower’s determined response to the Soviets’
Sputnik 1.

David and his team produced the first in¬
tegrated circuit in space. The backup of their
Vanguard 3 satellite now hangs in NASA’s God¬
dard Space Center, while the actual satellite is
still in orbit. Data from David’s team’s Explorer
1 and Explorer 3 satellites, or the lack thereof,
provided the evidence for earth’s radiation

belts, discovered byjames Van Allen. David con¬
ceived and developed two-dimensional optical
logic for the Landsat program, and then came
the construction of massively parallel process¬
ing computers, and much more. After leaving
NASA in 1981, David spent fifteen years as pro¬
fessor of computer science at George Mason
University in Northern Virginia, continuing to
serve there as an emeritus associate professor
after his retirement in 1996. He was the author
or co-author of over thirty journal and proceed¬
ings papers, had articles in seven books, and was
awarded twelve patents for computer-related in¬
ventions.

In the field of Carroll scholarship, the
chapter David and Maxine wrote on the Alice
films, “The Film Collector’s Alice” published in
Lewis Carroll Observed , edited by Edward Guilia-
no (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1976), has
never been surpassed, and continually updated
versions of its checklist grace the various later
incarnations of The Annotated Alice. David and
Maxine produced The Tale of the Mouse’s Tail
(Mica, 1995), and David and Mary wrote Where
Did You Change? A Light Look at Bathing Machines
(Mica, 2006).

In recent years, David began to apply for a
patent for the software he and his son Ed were
designing to convert the black and white im¬
ages of silent films, especially the 1903 Cecil
Hepworth Alice film, to sound. The software was
used in certain segments of the double-DVD set
he produced that was our 2016 Membership
Premium, Alice’s Film Adventures Before 1932.

At the January 16th memorial service for
David at Temple Emanuel in Silver Spring, fol¬
lowing several psalms in Hebrew and English
and reminiscences by family members, the can¬
tor noted that since David was a nonbeliever,
she preferred to conclude by selecting some¬
thing from Lewis Carroll instead of saying the
Kel Maleh Rachamim or other prayer. She read
that famous excerpt from Carroll’s November
13, 1890, letter to Ellen Terry, who had been giv¬
ing acting lessons to the child actress Isa Bow¬
man: “And so you have found out that secret—
one of the deepest secrets of life—that all, that
is really worth doing, is what we do for others.”
That was true of Lewis Carroll, and also true of
David Hutzler Schaefer.

5 1

MAD WORLD

Daniel Rover Singer

Musicals are notoriously difficult
to write. It’s nearly impossible to
create a perfectly organic com¬
bination of story and songs that
successfully whisks audiences into
a suspension of disbelief. And a
good musical about Lewis Carroll
is highly improbable, given that
his life hardly lends itself to the
medium.

However, the young team of
Cristian Guerrero and Chan¬
dler Patton (writers) and Steven
Schmidt (composer), creators of
a musical entitled Mad World , won
over a skeptical audience of Car-
rollians with a one-hour condensa¬
tion of their award-winning show.

Performing concert-style (read¬
ing at music stands) with live key¬
board accompaniment by the com¬
poser, as well as a drummer, the
show’s creators (Cristian Guerrero
as Becker, Chandler Patton as Mrs.
Lorina Liddell, Steven Schmidt
as one of the choral singers)
performed alongside a talented
ensemble: Andrew Ceglio (Dodg-
son), Madison Davenport (Alice),
Kendra Schmidt (Alice’s sister
Lorina, aka “Ina”), Trent Rowland
(Tenniel/Suitor), Natasha Still
(Edith), Fox Smith (Harry), Dan¬
iel Stewart (Henry Liddell), and
Kaytie Holt (chorus). Last-minute
casting difficulties led to Cristian
portraying Florence Becker; the
gender switch was something we
easily adjusted to.

Together they enacted a story
of biographer Florence Becker
(later Lennon), who shows up at
the aged Liddell sisters’ auction of
precious personal items (includ¬
ing the Under Ground manuscript)
in 1929, fiercely determined to
meet the Liddells in order to
discover the truth about Lewis
Carroll. Alice’s sister Ina initially
refuses to be interviewed, but
finally relents; as she reminisces,
we are whisked back to the 1860s,

Cmollkn Notes

where we are shown how an ec¬
centric math teacher befriends the
four children of his boss, invents
a story to amuse them, and then
jeopardizes both his career and his
relationship with his boss’s family
by publishing it.

In order to develop the plot
in a manner that gives the show’s
composer something to write
songs about, the writers have
imagined a plausible emotional
storyline in which Dodgson and
Alice’s older sister Ina fall in love.
It’s historically improbable, but as
we watched their well-rehearsed,
confident, and profoundly earnest
presentation, it was easy to dismiss
what we agree are the likely facts
about Dodgson’s relationship with
the Liddell family, and appreci¬
ate the lovely singing and mature
storytelling, in which Dodgson be¬
comes an unlikely romantic hero.

[When Karoline Leach first proposed a
Dodgson romance with Lorina Liddell,
it was in fact Alice’s older sister she
was referring to. Later she changed her
mind and decided it was the identi¬
cally named mother, and published her
speculations in her 1999 book In the
Shadow of the Dreamchild. - MB]

The songs in Mad World are
modern, lilting tone-poems that
cut directly to the emotional core
of the situation. While extremely
pretty and emotionally on-point,
this kind of sung communica¬
tion of feelings is decidedly un-
Victorian. The libretto is also
not terribly accurate to the time
period—there are several jarringly
modern words and phrases, and

there is far too much casual use of
first names—but this has become
largely forgivable since shows
like Hamilton and movies like The
Greatest Showman have proven the
appeal of modern twists given to
historical subjects. It doesn’t seem
out of step for Mad World to tell its
story in a contemporary style while
working hard to be generally re¬
spectful of history. It may be ran¬
kling the first time you hear the
children call CLD “Uncle Charlie,”
but after a few repetitions, one real¬
izes the genuine affection it implies,
and most will let go of the inclina¬
tion to bristle at such a faux pas.

[In subsequent correspondence I had
with the writers, they happily agreed to
have little Alice call him ‘ Mr. Dodg¬
son” throughout, if another production
is forthcoming. ]

The writers do inject many Car-
rollian phrases into the dialogue
(the 1951 Disney cartoon is also
a source of dialogue, unnecessar¬
ily) , giving the show a brisk, witty
flair, but overall, the tone is that
of a wistful romantic drama, which
left us misty-eyed at the end. Mad
World is a mature, imaginative,
insightful attempt to bring fresh
perspective to a mystery whose so¬
lution we’d all like to know. While
getting it to Broadway may be a
“tough sell,” we wish these bright
collaborators much success with
this and all their future creative
ventures.

/Mad World was first performed at
the Beverly Hills Playhouse in 2011,
when Cristian and Steven were still
in high school! There have been fully
staged productions at Ball State Uni¬
versity (Muncie, Indiana) in 2015,
where it won first place at the Discovery
New Musical Festival, and at the Ken¬
nedy Center American College Theatre
Festival (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) in
2016, where it was named ‘Most Out¬
standing New Work in the Country. ” It
also received a special one-time Charles
Dodgson Award (a $10,000 grant)
from the Wonderland Awards at USC.]

- M -

use LIBRARIES 14TH
WONDERLAND AWARD

Linda Cassady

During the spring 2018 LCSNA
meeting, the display cases
throughout Doheny Memorial
Library were filled with fourteen
years of striking art, art installa¬
tions, fashion, games, and stories
from hundreds of University of
Southern California (USC) and
other Southern California Uni¬
versity students who reimagined,
reinterpreted, and remixed Car-
roll’s stories. The Wonderland
Award is an annual multidisci¬
plinary competition that encour¬
ages new scholarship and creative
work related to Lewis Carroll, with
a goal of promoting the use of the
Cassady Lewis Carroll Collection
held at Doheny

Members and guests of the
Society and USC students and
faculty viewed student submissions
on April 13, 2018, and attended
the announcement of winners, at
which students give a summary of
their work. USC Libraries hosted
a reception following the ceremo¬
nies, which allowed the Wonder¬
land Award students and guests
to mingle and enjoy the Southern
California evening in the Nazarian
Pavilion courtyard.

This year, students created new
interpretations and incarnations
of Alice, which included film, stop

action animation, original music,
short fiction, annotated fiction,
art and art objects, and a descrip¬
tive essay using Wonderland as a
place to promote new ideas and
concepts for architectural design.
Entries were judged by Clare Im-
holtz, Carrollian scholar; Peter
Hanff, deputy director of the
Bancroft Library at the University
of California, Berkeley; Molly
Bendall, poet and USC Professor
of English; Lisa Mann, USC Pro¬
fessor of Cinematic Arts; Kelsey
Rice, 1 st Place Wonderland Award
winner, 2016, for an augmented
reality book/game, What Is It But
A Dream; and Linda Cassady. Each
submission is judged on Quality,
Carrollian Spirit, Originality, and
an accompanying Artist Statement.
The judges met in person for a
final view and discussion of the
work. All student information is
anonymous in the review process.
As happens, this year’s final review
required an entire afternoon of
joy and angst to determine the
winners.

Justice Shellan, a USC senior
majoring in English earned the 1 st
Prize ($3,000) for his annotated
short story “Roklif,” featuring a
protagonist who embarks on a
fanciful journey of discovery that
mirrors that of the titular charac¬
ter in the two Alice books. Read the
piece first without the annotations,
and then find a different world

Wonderland Award judges and winners (L to R): Kelsey Rice, Clare Imholtz, Maria Jose
Montero, Alexander Aprahamian, Justice Shellan, Molly Bendall, Linda Cassady,

Lisa Mann, Peter Hanff

when re-reading with the annota¬
tions. Roklif’s name derives from
the Norse words Ragnarok (“the
doom of the gods”) and ^/(mean¬
ing “life”). The story is heavily
annotated throughout with refer¬
ences to the imaginative puns and
themes conjured by Lewis Carroll.

When Shellan accepted the
award, he said, “In this collection,

I saw the inspiration one artist can
have on all generations that follow
him. I saw what it means to impact
the creative voices of others. I saw,
in that room, my greatest dream as
a writer.”

Second Prize ($1500) went to
Cinematic Arts student Alexander
Aprahamian for his work Chess
Film (youtu.be/Rg7LBUshhno).
This short work, of stunning qual¬
ity and impact, is inspired both
by Ingmar Bergman’s classic The
Seventh Seal and the overarching
chess motif in Carroll’s Through
the Looking-Glass , and reflects on
the age-old philosophical question
of free will vs. determinism. Mak¬
ing the film required a number
of skills and steps: discovering
Carroll, writing the treatment,
learning chess, choreographing a
chess game, finding and rehears¬
ing actors, filming, editing, and
designing sound.

The Bellman’s Prize ($500)
was established this year by Dean
Catherine Quinlan of the USC
Libraries and named after one
of the characters (the Bellman)
in Carroll’s nonsense poem The
Hunting of the Snark. It is given
to the student who best uses the
blank Ocean Map—think creative
risk taking, doing something dif¬
ferent—in her or his Wonderland
Award adventure. This prize went
to Maria Jose Montero, a senior
architecture-entrepreneurship
student, for her beautifully con¬
ceived and illustrated nonfiction
submission, Learning from Wonder¬
land. The descriptive design work
examines contemporary architec¬
ture practices through the prism
of Carroll’s literary creations, and

answers the question, “What can
architecture learn from Alice in
Wonderland, ?” The Bellman’s Prize
recognizes particularly creative
risk-taking or maybe a project that
tried to find a Snark and may have
found a Boojum.

Note: First Prize is funded by
an anonymous donor through
the Lewis Carroll Society of North
America. Amy Plummer and Linda
Cassady provided LCSNA mem¬
berships to all students submitting
work to the Wonderland Award.

- m -

THE STRAIGHT DOPE
ON THE MMPI

Cecil Adams, of The Straight Dope
column, books, and website, was
informed by a reader, “In Christo¬
pher Whitcomb’s book Cold Zero:
Inside the FBI Hostage Rescue Team
[Little, Brown, 2001)], he men¬
tions that one of the questions in a
test determining suitability for the
FBI was if the applicant had read
Alice in Wonderland ,” and was asked
to explain it. Cecil’s reply (in part):

Let’s clear up one thing off the
bat: the question isn’t whether
you’ve read Alice in Wonderland ,
it’s whether you liked it. (To be
precise, you’re supposed to re¬
spond true or false to some vari¬
ant of the statement “I enjoyed
reading Alice in Wonderland.”)

This slightly sinister query was in
the original edition of the Min¬
nesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory (MMPI), a well-known
personality test commonly, if
inappropriately, administered to
job applicants. It was dropped
from a newer version of the test,
MMPI-2, which was published in
1989, but still appears in another
test, the California Psychological
Inventory (CPI). Your paranoia
about such things is understand¬
able—what’s a question like that
supposed to gauge? Whether you
like fantasy? Hookah smoking?
Little girls?

I’ve gotten several answers.
William Poundstone in Bigger

Secrets [Houghton Mifflin, 1986]
writes that, on the MMPI, “Liking
the story suggests femininity in a
man; disliking it suggests mas¬
culinity in a woman.” However,
retired University of Minne¬
sota psychology professor James
Butcher, one of the prime movers
behind MMPI-2 and somebody
who ought to know, tells me the
Alice question was experimental
and never measured anything.
Possibly Poundstone got the
MMPI and the CPI mixed up—a
spokesman for the company pub¬
lishing the latter says the answer
among other things contributes
to the “femininity/masculinity”
scale, which measures “sensitivity
vs. action.” An element of sen¬
sitivity is an interest in the arts,
presumably including literature,
hence Alice. Does answering
“true” make you too sensitive to
be a cop? Not to worry. Dozens
of items contribute to the F/M
scale, giving you ample opportu¬
nity to demonstrate you’re butch.

NEVER ESCHEW ESCHER

“Let me first tell you that I know
your name quite well, not as col¬
umnist of Scientific American , but
as the writer of The Annotated Alice.
Prof. Coxeter draw my attention
on this book when I was his guest
last November and I bought imme¬
diately a copy myself, which enjoys
me immensely [sic]. I am since
long an Alice fan, but since I read
your annotations, many incompre¬
hensible details became clear! Cer¬
tainly I should be glad if my round
colour-woodcut (which Coxeter
calls ‘The Miraculous Draught of
Fishes’ and which I entitle ‘Circle
Limit III’) could be reproduced
on the magazine’s cover.”

This charming paragraph in a
letter from M. C. Escher to Martin
Gardner (Jan. 17, 1961) was in
response to a note from Gardner
asking for the artist’s permission
to run some of his drawings in a
“Mathematical Games” column

(its subject was Canadian geom¬
eter H. S. M. Coxeter) and on the
cover of Scientific American for the
April 1961 issue (permission was
granted). Escher went on to offer
Gardner an original copy of the
woodcut for $70, profusely apolo¬
gizing for its expensiveness. (It’s
probably worth $40- to $50,000
today.) They continued to corre¬
spond, which led to Gardner’s fa¬
mous April 1966 column devoted
to the artist. Although Time and
Life both had printed short articles
about Escher in 1951, it was Gard¬
ner’s that launched the avalanche
in the popularity of Escher’s work,
which continues to this day. It is
nice to note that it was Alice who
paved the way.

Further reading may be found
in J. Taylor Hollist and Doris
Schattschneider’s “M. C. Escher
and C. v. S. Roosevelt” in M. C.
Escher s Legacy: A Centennial Celebra¬
tion (Springer, 2003).

DRIVE-BY LAUGHTER

Visitors to the wine country town/
hippie enclave of Sebastopol,
California, are often delighted
(or baffled) to see a virtual circus
of large, whimsical, and colorful
sculptures dotting the landscape
and the streets. The art is provided
by Patrick Amiot and his wife,
Brigitte Laurent, and many Alice
figures are among its characters.
They love that their art can be ap-

preciated by all, even those driving
by in their cars.

The couple came to Sebastopol
from Montreal about twenty years
ago. His sculptures come in two va¬
rieties: ceramic figures and “junk
art” (made from found objects: car
parts, watches, paint brushes, glass
jars, whatever). All are one-of-a-
kind, and all are hand-painted by
Brigitte. He has made many dif¬
ferent versions of the various Alice
characters in his “junk art” style,
some of which are on display in his
house and on his lawn. All of his
pieces are cartoony, amusing, even
laugh-provoking, but they evoke a
certain sweetness as well.

As we speak, he is in negotia¬
tions to buy an old carousel made
by the Herschell Spillman Com¬
pany in the 1920s, thirty feet in
diameter, to populate with Alice
characters! Should this come to
pass, watch these pages. Mean¬
while, do visit his work at patrick
amiot.com or throughout the wine
country if you happen to be in
Northern California.

DUTCH SOCIETY’S
SECOND SYMPOSIUM

The Dutch Lewis Carroll Society
(“Lewis Carroll Genootschap”) was
established in The Netherlands
in 1976, but during the past thirty
years it has remained dormant
with no activities. That changed
on January 12, 2018, when the
Society reconvened to hold a new
symposium at the Koninklijke
Bibliotheek (National Library of
the Netherlands) in The Hague.
Thirty-five friends of the Society
attended.

The program began with an
interesting tour in the National Li¬
brary with, of course, special atten¬
tion given to Alice in Wonderland.
The first speaker was Floor Rieder,
a well-known Dutch illustrator who
has received many awards, and is
popular in other countries, too,
especially Germany. In 2014 she
illustrated De avonturen van Alice in

Wonderland & Alice in Spiegelland, a
Dutch version of both Alice books.
She discussed the choices she
made for her illustrations and the
techniques she used. In Rieder’s
illustrations, Alice is a contempo¬
rary, entrepreneurial girl with a
hoodie, sneakers, backpack, and
eyeglasses. Rieder’s goal is to cre¬
ate illustrations attractive both to
girls and boys.

Fedde Bedictus was the second
speaker. He is a friend of the So¬
ciety and author of the blog “The
Tricycle down the Rabbit-hole”
(feddebenedictus.com). His pre¬
sentation, “Alles in Wonderland,”
was about whether our Dutch lan¬
guage is adequate to describe real¬
ity. Referring to Carroll’s article
What the Tortoise Said to Achilles and
examples from Alice’s Adventures
in Wonderland , he explained what
Godel, Escher, and Zen have in
common. It was food for thought,
and a topic that will certainly be
revisited.

Between these talks, a short
version of Jan Svankmajer’s film
Alice (Neco z Alenky) was shown.

The Society then discussed its
achievements and plans, and
presented two new publications.

A new journal, dodo/nododo, tijd-
schrift in de geest van Lewis Carroll,
is a significant indicator of the
revival of the Dutch Lewis Carroll
Society. It has a new name and a
new design. The journal aims to
promote Lewis Carroll and Alice
and contains not only studies of
Lewis Carroll’s life and work, but
also original publications that
perpetuate his spirit—contribu¬
tions with an original style and
a special attention to language,
puzzles, fantasy, and nonsense. Jur
Koksma and Joep Stapel are the
editors, and the designer is Mich-
iel Terpelle. Two of the contribu¬
tions are in English: a logic essay
on the reductio ad absurdum in the
Alice books by the Dutch Society’s
chair, Bas Savenije, and an inter¬
view with Brazilian artist Adriana

Peliano, discussing twenty years of
her work.

The other publication, written
by Henri Ruizenaar, contains six
Dutch and two African translations
of Jabberwocky. To come is a trans¬
lation of the dialogue between
Alice and Humpty Dumpty about
the famous first stanza. Also, Jur
Koksma and Joep Stapel have
composed a new Dutch translation
of Jabberwocky especially for this
edition. They wrote an accompa¬
nying essay about their “struggle
with the Jabberwock” and the
variety of solutions created by the
different translators for the Jab¬
berwocky puzzle. The publication
is designed by Iris Cousijnsen.

For more information or to order
these publications, visit www.lewis
carrollgenootschap.nl (see p.64).

BURNING THE BAKER

Goetz Kluge

I interpret Lewis Carroll and
Henry Holiday’s epic The Hunting
of the Snark as a ballad about how
man’s pursuit of happiness ends
tragically when the struggle for the
right path to the truth turns from
legitimate dispute (Snark) into
zealous fanaticism (Boojum). Too
often, in the end, some seekers of
happiness even get burned.

That happened to Thomas
Cranmer, a leader of the English
Reformation and Archbishop of
Canterbury during the reigns of
Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary
I. He was put on trial for treason
and heresy and imprisoned for
more than two years. Under pres¬
sure from Church authorities, he
made several recantations, but he
had to leave his 42 Protestant ar¬
ticles behind when, in the end, he
was burned at the stake in 1556 by
“Blood Mary,” who was Catholic.

The Baker, the hero in The
Hunting of the Snark, left 42 boxes
behind him, with his name paint¬
ed clearly on each. A baker is ex¬
posed to heat. He answered to
“Fry me!” or “Fritter my wig!” Inti-

Figure i. Henry Holiday’s illustration to the final chapter of The
Hunting of the Snark with the highlighted section rotated.

Figure 2. Detail from Faith’s Victorie

mate friends called him “Candle-
ends” and his enemies “Toasted-
cheese.”

In his poem, Carroll gives us
a very broad hint: This Baker got
burned. We can see the final burn¬
ing in Henry Holiday’s illustration
to the last “fit” of the Snark poem
(Figure 1). In the circled area, a
part of the Boojum seems to have
seized the Baker’s wrist.

Compare that to Figure 2, show¬
ing the stake and the fire burning
Thomas Cranmer (at right) and
several other Protestant martyrs,
a detail from the seventeenth-
century engraving Faith’s Victorie in
Rome’s Crueltie by Thomas Jenner
(1631-1656). In both figures you
see a hand in a fire. To me, this
is the sad end of the hero of The
Hunting of the Snark.

ttjgr

RUN, ALICE, RUN

Victor Fet

Several generations of children
in Russia grew up listening to the
1976 LP record of Wonderland —an
engaging audio musical loosely
based on Nina Demurova’s transla¬
tion of Alice’s Adventures (1967).
This version featured original
songs by Vladimir Vysotsky (1938-
1980), a stage and film actor, poet,
and balladeer who was possibly the
most important cultural figure of
that time. The availability of his

songs on the Wonderland record
was a rare exception, since his
poems were banned from publica¬
tion. But, sung by the author, they
could be heard on magnetic tapes
throughout Russia. His popularity
was extraordinary across all social
groups.

At the same time, in the
Taganka Theatre in Moscow,
Vysotsky, under the famous direc¬
tor Yuri Lyubimov (1917-2014),
played the most fondly remem¬
bered Russian Hamlet. In Febru¬
ary 2018, to celebrate Vysotsky’s
80th birthday, a new musical
premiered in the Taganka, featur¬
ing the poet’s lyrics from the 1976
record. The show is titled Begi,
Alisa, Begi (Run, Alice, Run). It was
directed by Maxim Didenko, with
a new, original playscript by Valery
Pecheykin, an impressive stage set
by Maria Tregubova, and music by
Ivan Kushnir. A selection of im¬

ages can be seen at tagankateatr.
ru/Begi-Alisa-Begi.

Didenko’s musical starts
when the March Hare (played
by Vysotsky’s son, Dmitry) an¬
nounces: “All rise! Court is in ses¬
sion!” and the viewers reluctantly
rise. A stage poster says “Forward
to the Dark Past!” In this gloomy
and pensive version, complete
with giant animal characters
and psychedelic dancing, Alice
is played by a team of three—a
small girl, another girl a bit older,
and an adolescent. There is also
a fourth, zombie-like, character
billed as “Alice of the Night,” who
accompanies the evil Queen of
Worms (Irina Aleximova) ( chervi ,
“worms” in Russian, is a homo¬
phone of the Hearts card suit).

A lot has changed since Vysotsky
wrote the lyrics, but the Knave-of-
Hearts-style kangaroo courts go on
in Russia, as those lyrics from the
1976 record remind us: “The role
of the masses is easy enough: just
go down on your knees, what is
the problem? Your King is respon¬
sible for everything—or a Queen.”

Today, in Russia, trials of the¬
ater directors go on. Didenko’s
friend Kirill Serebrennikov, who
staged an absurdist opera of The
Hunting of the Snark in 2012, is now
under house arrest for alleged
embezzlement. The charge is be¬
lieved to be politically motivated.

- m -

ALICE IN ORCHIDLAND

Chris Morgan

This past February I visited the
66th Annual Pacific Orchid Ex¬
position (aka POE, no relation to
the man with the tell-tale heart)
at the Hall of Flowers in Golden
Gate Park, San Francisco. Or¬
chids are one of the two largest
families of flowering plants, with
about 28,000 currently accepted
species. The theme for the 2018
Exposition was “Curiouser and
Curiouser: Orchids in Wonder¬
land.” It played off the story, and
the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party was the
main theme for the Gala.

A large Mad Tea Party table was
set up at the exhibit, and exhibi¬
tors showed great ingenuity in ap¬
plying Carrollian themes to their
displays. One glassed-in display
case featured a large blue caterpil¬
lar puffing out what appeared to
be white smoke—but it was in fact
a humidifier hose in disguise, used
to keep the orchids from drying
out. Several giant mushrooms also
cropped up, and large, elaborate
Carrollian sets were constructed to
display hundreds of orchids.

No one, it appears, thought
to create a garden of live flowers,
where orchids could call out to
us as we moved past, wondering
how we did it, or telling us ‘You’re
beginning to fade, you know.”

After roaming the show, I got
the sense that POE exhibitors
were just getting started: next year,
Snark orchids pollinated by B’s!

- m -

ALICE IN DOWN-UNDERLAND

Matt Crandall

On April 5, 2018, the Australian
Centre for the Moving Image
(ACMI) in Melbourne opened its
new exhibition entitled “Wonder¬
land.” This amazing presentation
was more than three years in the
making, borrowing from a num¬
ber of institutions and individu¬
als, including the Rosenbach, the
Academy of Motion Pictures Arts

and Sciences, and three members
of the LCSNA. My wife and I were
fortunate enough to be able to at¬
tend the opening week events and
experience this wonderful show
live and in person.

The exhibition itself is a fantas¬
tic multimedia journey through
(primarily) the world of Alice in
moving pictures, i.e., film and
television. Your journey begins by
descending down a wide staircase
into a very nice rendition of a
Victorian parlor, presumably Mr.
Dodgson’s. In here you receive
your map of Wonderland, which is
also your multimedia passport to
unlocking several unique experi¬
ences along the way. The parlor is
filled with books and letters, mostly
on loan from the Rosenbach.

The next stop is the hall of
doors. Each door leads to a room
filled with marvelous objects,
film projection, and artifacts. Of

special note are an 1865 Alice , the
1866 copy inscribed by Carroll
to Duckworth, and a number of
items from his early youth. You
can also watch the very first Alice
film (courtesy of David Schaeffer).

Once you find the correct door
in the hall of doors, you proceed
to the early film room. Here you
will encounter an array of early
theatre items, film or film-like
items, and film memorabilia,
including several very old magic
lantern projectors. Here you may
also interact with the first of the
multimedia experiences activated
by your map. By inserting the map
so that the picture of Alice is com¬
plete, you receive a special ani¬
mated projection, one of several
such throughout the exhibition.

Proceeding on, you next enter
The Pool of Tears, a round display
table filled around the edges with
magic lantern slides, with a large
projection of one of the slides in
the center. Many of these were
only recently acquired by the mu¬
seum, and all are in very nice con¬
dition, but compared to the rest of
the show, I found this room to be
a little bit of a disappointment.

The next stop is what might be
called the mid-era film and televi¬
sion room, which contains artifacts
from the 1933 Paramount Alice ,
the Irving Berlin Puttin ’ on the Ritz
film, and some from television, in¬
cluding four Bob Mackie costumes

from the Alice Through the Looking
Glass 1966 NBC television musical.
Perhaps my favorite piece is the
fleur-de-lis staff that was held by
Alice in the Paramount film.

Moving every forward in time,
you now enter the room devoted
to experimental, art, and scary
films. While I confess that I do not
particularly care for many if not all
the films represented, the amount
of material that ACMI was able to
assemble is just plain astounding,
such as full sets and characters
from the Svankmajer film like
the creepy skull creature with the
Santa hat, and the Mad Hatter and
March Hare having tea—complete
with real butter! This room also
contains items from the Quay
brothers 2007 film, the Bunin film
(from David Schaeffer’s and Char¬
lie Lovett’s collections), and an
extensive collection of Svankmajer
illustrations for a Japanese book
from 2006, Arisu in Wonderland
(see p. 48).

Now that you’ve left the night-
mare-inducing room, it is time
to enter the room that embodies
the complete opposite: the Disney
Room—hooray!

As I’m sure will come to no sur¬
prise to anyone, this was my favor¬
ite room. And not just because we
lent them 90% of what’s in there.
Ok, maybe. But still, it is an impres¬
sive room nonetheless. They did a
great job of curating the items se¬
lected, depicting Alice’s evolution
at Disney from the earliest Alice
Comedies (1923-1926), through
preproduction in the 1930s, all the
way to the final animated film’s re¬
lease in 1951. They even managed
to get permission from Disney for
short film clip of Alice conversing
with the Caterpillar, hence the
name of the room: “Advice from a
Caterpillar.” Also on display were
some very nice pieces of art by
David Hall and some equally lovely
ones by Mary Blair.

The next room is probably the
most impressive by far: a full mul¬

timedia experience of the Mad
Tea Party. You are seated around
a large tea table, and the digital
experience begins. It is truly as¬
tounding, and words cannot really
do itjustice.

Once you exit the Tea Party,
you are invited into the Queen’s
croquet ground for arts and crafts.
Taking your Wonderland map, you
can make a rendition of a Card
using a wide variety of provided art
materials, and paste them onto the
back of your map. Once done, you
take your map to the front, where
both it and your face are scanned,
and you are magically transported
into the croquet ground as a Card
Gardener, where you proceed to
scamper about via your pasted
avatar, painting the roses red.

Next up is the world of Tim
Burton. Again, surprisingly, ACMI
was able to secure the loan of a
fantastic array of items from Tim
Burton’s film, including six full
costumes and dozens of original
props, set design, maquettes, and
models.

At the end of your journey
through Wonderland, you are
presented with a final multimedia
experience, a large multiscreen
project of clips from just about
every Alice film, commercial, TV
show, and reference in other films
and TV shows—all set to music. It
was quite entrancing.

The exhibition is a truly master¬
ful feat, with only one weak spot,
which is hardly worth mentioning.
The thought, care, and attention
to detail put into this event is
nothing short of incredible. And

that include the marketing as well.
You can hardly walk down any Mel¬
bourne street without seeing flags,
banners, posters, bus ads, streetcar
ads, and overpass signage all pro¬
moting the exhibition. It is truly
wondrous. Go see it if you can!

Wonderland runs through October 7.
There are associated screenings (e.g, an
‘Alice Is Everywhere ” season through
June 2), talks, “Wonderland Late
Nights” (DJs, bands, and live art perfor¬
mances), and their website (www.acmi.
net.au) is full of fascinating articles
on a multitude of aspects of cinematic
Alices (under the “Ideas” tab).

- m -

MAD HATTERPILLAR

This bizarre-looking creature,
noted on Wired’s Bug Girl’s Blog, is
the Australian gum leaf skeleton-
iser caterpillar, though entomolo¬
gists affectionately call it the Mad
Hatterpillar because of the series
of “heads” it grows in a stack. It’s
not entirely clear why it does this.
One theory is that birds might
peck at the extra heads instead of
the rest of the caterpillar. National
Geographic notes that this is a very
cost-effective defense, since the
caterpillar just needs to keep a bit
of its body that it would otherwise
have discarded. Mad Hatterpillars
believe their heads are a very good
height indeed. They’re covered
with protective spines that sting,
so stay away from their tea parties
when Down Under.

Mad Hatterpillar, from
Gwen Pearson’s blog at
https://membracid. wordpress.
com/2013/06/13/the-mad-
hatterpillar/.

PULP FRICTION

To quote KL 77:35, “Online maga¬
zine Slate.com on May 25, 2006,
posted a gallery of faux ‘pulp
fiction’ bookjackets for classics.

... Their first was, of course, Alice
in Wonderland , with a lurid char¬
treuse cover portraying a trashy,
booted blonde, hands suspiciously
placed, with the tagline ‘One
girl’s drug-induced descent into
dreamland debauchery.’” Well,
truth is stranger than fiction. In
2015, a company called “Pulp! The
Classics” in the UK produced a
tongue-in-cheek edition of Wonder¬
land with a puce and green cover
featuring a Judy Garland looka-
like, in hippie regalia, opening
a bottle. The tagline proclaims,
“This cupcake was off her head!”

It goes into the category of cov¬
ers impossible to believe (before
or after breakfast), along with
Trevor Brown’s “maltalented and
anapologetical exspuitation” ( KL
65:20) and the Langham Hotel
and Resort’s 2010 giveaway, with its
come-hither blonde. ISBN 978-1-
84344-397-1.

Jabberwalking
Juan Felipe Herrera
Candlewick, 2018
ISBN 978-0-7636-9264-3 (p)
978-1-5362-0140-6 (h)
Herrera, the U.S. poet laureate
from 2015 to 2017, playfully extols
the virtues of “jabberwalking,” a
method of composition wherein
one just scribbles down everything
one hears, encounters, or hap¬
pens to think about whilst walk¬
ing around, sitting on a plane,
whatever. Then, in several stages—
lightheartedly “organizing” it, writ¬
ing it down on a newspaper page,
and so on—one ends up with a
genuine, frolicsome poem. Car-
roll’s nonsense verse permeates
this witty, exuberant book, which
also includes some fantastic (in
the literal sense) anecdotes about
his dog, and many other “diver¬
sions and digressions.” Kirkus
Review called it a “stream-of-con-
sciousness, metafictive exploration
of the poetic process.” In other
words, fun stuff!

- m -

Caryl: Why Lewis Carroll
Believed in Fairies

Written and Illustrated
by Byron Sewell
Boojum Run Press, 2018
ISBN 978-1974136278

Cindy Watter

Another unlikely but enjoyable
tale of fantasy has sprung from the
imagination of Byron Sewell. Caryl
purports to be the true story of
how Alice’s Adventures under Ground
was composed. Purists may quib¬
ble over this latest origin story,
interpreting it as disrespect for the
creative genius of The Master, but

it is an amusing tale, with allusions
to “Rumpelstiltskin,” Sylvie and
Bruno , A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
and the characters in Alice’s Adven¬
tures in Wonderland.

Caryl also features an introduc¬
tion by the redoubtable August A.
Imholtz, Jr. Half of it is in Latin,
and by St. Thomas Aquinas at
that, but Imholtz kindly provides
a translation for those of us who
haven’t read a shred of Latin since
1964. He also quotes Carroll’s
mock-serious discussion of pixies
from The Rectory Umbrella. (In fact,
Lewis Carroll often wrote about
fairies, and was interested in the
supernatural.) The book opens
with a Coleridgesque poem by
Lewis Carroll called “Horrors,” in
which the speaker is frightened
by a monster with “a face of grim-
mliest green.” It is a clue that the
fairies in this book might not be
adorable little sprites. Imholtz
also points out that “Caryl” was
the name of one of Alice Liddell
Hargreaves’s sons, and that she
had claimed to have found the
name in a novel; it had nothing to
do with her friendship with Lewis
Carroll. Imholtz doesn’t buy that:
“Upper-class British families were
seldom so casual in naming their
offspring.”

In Chapter 1, the fairy queen
is depressed because her child is
missing. (Trigger warning: It may
have been devoured by Chessie,
the Duchess’s cat.) Shrike, a crafty
little elf, strikes a deal with the
pregnant Frances Dodgson, and
after some business with a chalk
circle, and with some unnerv¬
ing obstetrical details (what the
midwife knew!), she gives birth to
twin boys, one of whom becomes a
prince of Fairyland.

Years later, the brothers be¬
come acquainted. If you ever won¬
dered if anyone other than CLD
created Under Ground , here is one
(im)possibility. The two brothers’
occasional mild wrangling over
which of them thought of what is
amusing, and the Carrollian fas-

cination with mirror images has
expression in the identical twins.
Perhaps you want to know how the
White Rabbit got its watch, or what
was in the missing pages of the
Diaries, or the roots of Carroll’s
poem “My Fairy” Look no further.

There are many allusions to
characters and events in Carroll’s
other books, especially Sylvie and
Bruno, which comes in for gentle
mockery. For example, several no¬
tions are set aside “for when I am
very old and no longer have very
good ideas.” These ideas will ap¬
pear in Sylvie and Bruno, the only
conspicuous failure in the Carrol-
lian canon.

There are a few errors in punc¬
tuation and some misprints, but
they are minor. A few anachronis¬
tic colloquialisms did not destroy
my pleasure in the little book.
However, I have believed many
more than six impossible things
before breakfast, but I still can¬
not accept that Charles Lutwidge
Dodgson or Caryl the fairy prince
ever said “OK.” (My good friend
Humpty Dumpty agrees with me.)

But those are trifles. Caryl is
quite funny, and as a bonus, the
short story “A Mississippi Snark
Hunt,” complete with a reprint of
a mysterious and truly bizarre vin¬
tage photograph, is included. In
the photo, two dapper gentlemen,
probably from a hundred years
ago, are wearing remarkably tidy
sports clothes (hats and ties), and
holding—what? An alligator? An
enormous catfish? A waterlogged
portmanteau? A failed effort at
taxidermy? A snark? Alas, I shall
never know.

- M -

Mrs. White Rabbit
Originally published as
Madame le Lapin Blanc
Written and illustrated
by Gilles Bachelet
Eerdmans Books for
Young Readers
ISBN 978-0-8028-5483

Andrew Ogus

A successful expansion of the
world of Wonderland is always fun.
In this delightful picture book,
Gilles Bachelet imagines the White
Rabbit as a married man (perhaps
Alice was wrong and Mary Anne
is his wife, not his servant?) with a
large family and an important job
at the royal palace, where his du¬
ties apparently include roistering
with his colleagues. But this is Mrs.
White Rabbit’s story (see illustra¬
tion below left ).

She has snatched a few mo¬
ments from her busy day to write
in her diary. And what does she
write? A devoted mother, Mrs.
Rabbit first reflects on her chil¬
dren, each characterized verbally
and pictorially (one spread is dedi¬
cated to the hundred ways to cook
carrots she has undertaken to
tempt her would-be-fashion-model
daughter); the more-or-less visible
cat one of her sons has enthusiasti¬
cally adopted; and a certain young
visitor. Mr. Rabbit’s suggestion that
the latter be hired as a babysitter
was not well received: “Who wants
their children looked after by
someone who doesn’t know how
to stay a reasonable size?”

The wedding of pictures and
words seems happier than the
marriage they describe. Hilariously
detailed images include characters
from both Alice books, rewarding
close study as they expand and ex¬
plicate Bachelet’s tale. Every image
is worth thousands of words, but
Mrs. Rabbit’s voice is distinct and
vivid. Her frustrations slowly seep
in. In their gossipy town everyone
knows everyone else and when she
has bought a new hat—except her
husband. Will he learn to appreci¬
ate his loving but disgruntled wife?

Does he even know it’s her birth¬
day? Can this marriage be saved?
Buy and read this wonderful book
to find out!

The Fish Chronicles
Written and Illustrated
by Byron Sewell

I. Skinny Alice

II. Comic Alice

III. Pinball Alice

Boojum Run Press, 2017-18

Mark Burstein

Byron Sewell’s offbeat trilogy in¬
volving homicidal Carrollian bib¬
liophiles was first privately printed
under the auspices of Chicken
Little’s Press in 2001 in an unil¬
lustrated edition of ten copies.

It has been substantially revised,
updated, and superbly illustrated,
and is now available to the world
via Amazon.

The protagonist, Fish O’Feish,
a wealthy, cold-blooded collector,
will stop at nothing—multiple
murders, arson, bribery, kidnap¬
ping—to get Carrollian rarities,
particularly translations, comic
books, crime fiction, curiosa, and
erotica. Byron, a world-class col¬
lector himself, knows the territory,
and one can only hope that Fish is
a more than slightly exaggerated,
rather than an accurate portrait of
a typical member of our club.

Fish is a well-traveled antihero:
Skinny Alice takes place in Mexico,
Argentina, and West Virginia;

Comic Alice in South Carolina, West
Virginia, and Texas; and Pinball
Alice in Houston, West Virginia,
and a fictitious LCSNA conference
in Charleston.

The pleasures of reading the
books are twofold: one, the intrica¬
cies of the plot and well-delineated
characters forming a picture of
bibliomania at its most malevolent;
and two, the joy of discovering the
many insider references not only
to the Alice books but to some of
the stars in the LCSNA constella¬
tion. Byron’s reconstruction of an

LCSNA meeting is priceless. Oc¬
casionally, worlds collide, as Byron
often uses real people (e.g., Au¬
gust Imholtz, Karoline Leach) and
characters based on them (e.g.,
Augie Imthern, Carolina Peach
Fuzz) in the same scene. He is
also humorously merciless in por¬
traying his, ah, less cultured West
Virginia neighbors.

All in all, a fine read, and the
more one knows about the LCSNA
and its denizens, the funnier it will
be to you.

Wonderland, & Looking-Glass
Illustrated by Gennady Kalinovski
Inky Parrot Press, 2017

Andrew Ogus

Gennady Kalinovski (1929-2006)
was one of Russia’s most famous
illustrators, with an oeuvre of
ninety books. His great obsession
was with Lewis Carroll’s two Alice
books, even though it was politi¬
cally impossible to publish them
until he was fifty.

His first Wonderland , with
black-and-white illustrations, was
published in Russia by Detskaya
Literatura in 1979; a new edition
with color pictures was released
by the same publisher in 1988.

An exquisite yet inexpensive two-
color reprint of both Alice books
was released by Moscow’s Studio
4+4 in 2011, with Russian text by
Boris Zakhoder ( Wonderland) and
Vladimir Orel ( Looking-glass ), both
reviewed in KL 89:36. Now Inky
Parrot has just published, with
English text, fine editions of both

books, sold individually or as a
boxed set. Seeing the original Eng¬
lish words here is a delicious shock
that makes one want to reread the
books in the context of these very
Russian illustrations. The special
edition is enclosed in a handsome
box; the striking self-portrait pasted
on the outside is another bonus.

In the “new” Wonderland ,
combining his brilliant illustra¬
tions to both earlier editions, lush
watercolor enhances hilarious spot
illustrations and lavish spreads.
Looking-Glass s pictures remain
black and white, but include ethe¬
real tone, unlike the earlier, purely
linear, version. As in that edition,
one is happily reminded of Stead¬
man and Searle.

In both books the layout is
imaginative and lively, with char¬
acters entering and exiting the
pages. The typography is elegant
throughout. The handsome
chapter openers are particularly
pleasing, successfully combining
a spelled-out chapter number in
black, a title, and an overprinted
solid shape, with the first line of
each chapter in matching color (a
lovely idea this reviewer has never
seen before). Kalinovski’s origi¬
nal designs remain: Wonderland
simulates Victorian typography
gone slightly mad; Looking-Glass
combines huge Cyrillic letters and
charming drawings.

Wonderland is preceded by the
artist’s own thoughts on illustra¬
tion and his process. “For me
every new book, first of all, is a
long creative process of inhabiting
the world of the literary charac¬

ters, feeling the style of the writer,
capturing the whole spirit of his
creations.” He goes on to describe
the white, bare room in which he
thought out the pictures: “Only
this way could I work: one to one
with the book.” TTLG’s preface
is a brief account of children’s
book publishing in Soviet Russia
by Ella Parry-Davis. While limits
can be freeing, sometimes they
can be stifling; these books were a
way of allowing the artist’s creative
imagination to flourish despite
absurd restraints. Both sets of
front matter include tantalizing
samples of Kalinovski’s other work.
His accomplishment is an astound¬
ing and beautiful addition to the
catalogue of illustrated Alice s.

Wonderland [168 pp, casebound
continental style, 140 numbered cop¬
ies, £76]; Looking-Glass [168 pp,
casebound continental style, 120 num¬
bered copies, £76]. The Special Edition
gives you both books, quarter-leather
bound continental style, and includes
a numbered giclee print from each of
the three editions, contained in a folder
decorated with a printed rebus by Ka¬
linovsky, all in a solander box with a
specially printed cover. There are 46
numbered Special Editions available,
£385. www. artists-choice-editions.
com/p/lewis-carroll.

- K -

One Fun Day with Lewis Carroll
A Celebration of Wordplay
and a Girl Named Alice

Kathleen Krull
Illustrated by Julia Sarda
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018
ISBN 9780544348233

Andrew Ogus

The name of the man who con¬
ceived and wrote Alice’s Adven¬
tures under Ground was not called
“Lewis Carroll.” Yet Kathleen Krull
blithely refers to him as “Lewis”
almost throughout this sprightly
exploration of Alice’s creation in a
book aimed at readers aged six to
nine. He is at last correctly named,
once, in a brief, straightforward

biography following the text. What
would the Rev. Charles L. Dodgson
have made of such inaccurate fa¬
miliarity?

After a cheerfully imagined de¬
scription of Dodgson’s life (“Even
after he grew into a prim and
proper Victorian gentleman, Lewis
still loved fun. He didn’t want any
child feeling mimsy [sic] in his
company. To amuse the children
of his friends, he kept closets full
of mechanical toys and dolls.”),
the focus turns at last as promised
to July 4, 1862—“a fine [sic] Fri¬
day,” but the actual date is uniden¬
tified. The other boaters are de¬
scribed as “a friend and the three
daughters of another friend . . .’’Is
Krull dodging Dodgson’s genuine
affection for his child friends? A
jumble of Alice’s adventures fol¬
lows, in which, in lieu of puns or
jokes in “celebration of wordplay,”
Krull whimsically forces coinages,
phrases, and characters from both
Alice books into inaccurate or
confusing contexts: “His playful¬
ness with words sent [his siblings]
into complete Jabberwocky.” [sic]
“Sea creatures dance the Lobster
Quadrille, while Alice interrupts
a Mad Tea Party.” Or “‘Write it
down!’ said the real Alice. She was
ten and, like the Queen of Hearts,
a bit bossy.” Hardly a celebratory
view of a barely mentioned hero¬
ine, nor an authentic reflection of
Dodgson’s own account.

Sarda’s layered illustrations
have a sophisticated, richly dark
color palette and some attractive
elements. Many are full-page.

One of the boaters appears to be
Xie Kitchen in Chinese costume.
Duckworth is not pictured (or was
he cut off in page makeup?). The
jagged teeth of the unappetizing
human characters are disturbing.
But even given artistic license,
it seems unlikely that Dodgson
would have encouraged his sib¬
lings to practice archery indoors.
(The juxtaposition of type and
picture does work especially well
on this particular spread.) A large

black cat appears repeatedly.
Finally noted as the Cheshire Cat
within a group of identified char¬
acters, it is more frightening than
the snail-like Snark. But what are
the Tweedle brothers or the Snark
even doing in a book about the
creation of Under Ground?

The modern fashion of color¬
izing and upsizing particular
words does not help the text,
despite a color-coded glossary.

On four succeeding pages the
thin sans serif type is sandwiched
between horizontal borders of il¬
lustration for a visually rich pair of
spreads—an interesting idea that
might have appeared more often,
and with better pacing.

Who is the intended audience
for this book? Six to nine year olds
deserve the real text, not this con¬
fused and confusing hodge podge.
Any child already familiar with
the Alice books, or having even a
casual knowledge of Dodgson’s
life, would learn little from it. The
novice reader might glean some¬
thing from the biography at the
back. Dodgson did in fact grow up
to be a “prim and proper Victorian
gentleman.” But otherwise the
characterizations of Dodgson and
Alice strike even this Carrollian
amateur as misleading, and the
recap of Under Ground is bewilder¬
ing. Some of the illustrations may
have some use, but neither the
words nor the pictures accurately
portray Dodgson, Carroll, or that
rainy day in July.

- m -

EVERTYPE

The Bashkir translation announ¬
ced as available in KL 99 was deliv¬
ered in late April.

Since our last issue, two titles have
been released by Evertype press:

La geste dAalis el Pais de Merveilles ,
Wonderland translated into Old
French verse by May Plouzeau,
with illustrations by Byron W.
Sewell (ISBN 978-1-78201-174-3).
Old French was spoken and/or
written in many parts of what is
now France, very roughly north
of the Loire, and in parts of Bel¬
gium; it was also used in numerous
circles in England, notably after
the Norman Conquest. Its life
extended roughly from the middle
of the ninth century to some time
in the fourteenth century. Aalis
is rendered as a chanson de geste ,
versified in stanzas of assonanced
decasyllabics.

Les paskeyes d Alice e pay is des
merveyes , Wonderland translated
into Central Walloon by Bernard
Louis (ISBN 978-1782011736).
Walloon is a regional Romance
language from southern Belgium,
dating back to 1600 and still spo¬
ken in Wallonia. Four types of Wal¬
loon can be identified: Western
(from Charleroi; used by Jean-Luc
Fauconnier for his 2012 Evertype
translation), Eastern (from Liege),
Central (from Namur), and South¬
ern (from the Ardennes region).

Bridgette Mongeon with her sculpture (opposite)

Photo by Bridgette Mongeon

ART & ILLUSTRATION

Renowned Spanish cartoonist, il¬
lustrator, and professor at the
University of Granada Sergio
Garcia Sanchez depicted the
entire book of Wonderland in
a single circular image, pub¬
lished in the New York Times
Book Review on February 2,

2018.

Bridgette Mongeon’s monumental
tea-party sculpture, Move One Place
On , is now fully installed in Ev¬
elyn’s Park in Bellaire, Texas, a
suburb of Houston (opposite).

She talked about it at our Spring
2015 meeting in Austin ( KL 94:6),
and now it’s open to the public.
Within it are 150 hidden Carroll
figures!

Noted illustrator Jane Breskin
Zalben has a piece from one of
her books on auction at New
York’s Swann Galleries in June,
showing Alice and Humpty-
Dumpty. Zalben is also open to
private sales if someone would like
to contact her through www.jane
breskinzalben.com.

- m -

ARTICLES & ACADEMIA

A one-day symposium, “Lewis Car-
roll and George MacDonald: An
Influential Friendship,” will take
place at the Sussex (UK) Centre
for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fan¬
tasy on Saturday, September 1,
2018. The deadline for their Call
for Papers has passed.

pigeon trade being banned in
1993, the little dodo is also on the
brink of extinction. Writes Jeremy
Hance in “Caught in the Crossfire:
Little Dodo Nears Extinction” in
The Guardian (April 9, 2018), “A
number of organisations have
been involved in little dodo con¬
servation efforts including the
Rufford Foundation, the
Falease’ela Environment Protec¬
tion Society (a local NGO), the
Auckland Zoo, the Darwin Initia¬
tive, and the Samoan govern¬
ment.” Its loss would disturb the
ecosystem, as little dodos are cru¬
cial seed distributors, as well as
deprive the world of another dodo
species.

“Near the end of the evening,
[Salman] Rushdie lamented that
no one memorizes poetry any¬
more,” the National Review re¬
ported about a book tour for
Rushdie’s The Golden House
(“Salman the Seer, Sort Of’ by
Fred Schwarz, September 7, 2017).
“At the moderator’s urging, he

recited Lewis Carroll’s ‘The Wal-
^ ^ rus and the Carpenter,’ start to
finish, from memory.”

On the “Culture” page of
the BBC website on May 21,
the results of a poll taken of
108 “expert critics and writers
around the globe” on “the
100 stories that shaped the
world” was announced. Top hon¬
ors, of course, went to The Odyssey;
Wonderland came in at #44 (“Two
places wrong,” as the Hatter would
sigh.)

HK-

BOOKS

Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole is a
fine title, although the book has
nothing really to do with our Alice
other than that and the subject, “a
place where absurdities abound.”
In the UK, the subtitle is “Extraor¬
dinary Journeys into the Human
Brain”; it was published by Atlantic
Books in 2015, and the paperback
has the White Rabbit on the cover.
On this side of the Pond, the sub¬
title was “A Renowned Neurologist
Explains the Mystery and Drama
of Brain Disease,” but the reprint
offers the more dramatic “Tales of
Life and Death on the Neurology
Ward.” The American edition was
published by St. Martin’s Press in
2014, and the cover has a Dali-
esque melting clock. The authors
are Dr. Allan H. Ropper and
Brian David Burrell (ISBN 978-
1250034984).

“It’s a Wonderland Life,” by Au¬
gust A. Imholtz, Jr., with a fine
illustration by Julian De Narvaez,
paid tribute to Tufts University
alumnus Morton Cohen in the Fall
2017 issue of Tufts Magazine , in
print and online.

The tooth-billed pigeon ( Diduncu-
lus strigirostris) is a Samoan bird
also called the “little dodo,” and
indeed it is a close genetic cousin
of our Raphus cucullatus, as well as
the also extinct Tongan tooth¬
billed pigeon. Despite the Samoan

Renowned origamist Pasquale
D’Auria’s take on Wonderland ,
using illustrations by La Studio
and an adapted text by Alberto
Bertolazzi, has been published by
Dover (ISBN: 978-0486820965).
Pat Olski’s crochet patterns for
Wonderland make another Dover
book (ISBN: 978-0486807348).

National Book Award finalist
Stitches: A Memoir (Norton, 2009),
by Caldecott winner David Small,
is a graphic novel of his painfully
disturbing childhood, the dark¬
ness only relieved by his having

“fallen in love with Alice.” His
therapist is portrayed as the White
Rabbit (ISBN: 978-0-393-33896-6).

Alice in Wonderland Anthology: Writ¬
ing, Art & Photography Inspired by
Lewis Carroll’s Classic Book \ Celebrat¬
ing 150 Years. In 2014, Silver Birch
Press of Los Angeles issued a call
for submissions, and this book,
edited by Melanie Villines and
published in 2015, is the result: a
fine, colorful macedoine of
poems, short stories, “creative
nonfiction,” haiku, photographs,
collages, paintings, drawings, and
so forth (ISBN 978-0692608555).

In My Holiday in North Korea: The
Funniest/Worst Place on Earth,
Wendy Simmons prefaces each
chapter with a quote from AATW
or TTLG. “These quotes perfectly
capture the author’s feeling of
having ‘fallen down a rabbit hole’
during her ten-day adventure,”
writes Jan Johnson in The Colum¬
bian. North Korea and Wonder¬
land do have so much in common,
from mass starvations to flamingo
croquet (ISBN 978-0795347047).

- m -

EVENTS, EXHIBITS, & PLACES

A hearty welcome back to the
Lewis Carroll Genootschap of the
Netherlands, a sister society. After
a flurry of meetings and publica¬
tions from 1976 to 1983, it softly
and suddenly vanished away, only
to reemerge in 2017. They have a
fine website (lewiscarrollgenoots
chap.nl) and several publications:
dodo/nododo, a journal with several
articles in English as well as Dutch;
and Jabberwocky, which concen¬
trates on translations of the poem
into Dutch. You can order them
from their online shop. Wauwel-
wok, their magazine from their ear¬
lier incarnation, is also available,
but only as .pdf downloads. Also
see p. 55. Welkom terug, vrienden!

The first retrospective of the art of
Charles San to re took place Febru¬
ary 17 through May 13, 2018, at
Philadelphia’s Woodmere Mu¬
seum. It highlights his award-win¬
ning work, including illustrations
for Alice’s Adventures Under Ground
(Cider Mill, 2015) and Alice’s Ad¬
ventures in Wonderland (Cider Mill,
2017; see reviews in KLs 96:42 and
99:41).

Digital photomontagist Maggie
Taylor’s Looking-Glass companion
to her superb Wonderland , the
subject of Andrew Sellon’s glowing
review ( KL 81:43), will be available
at the end of May. The online
photo-eye Gallery is showing six of
her new images for sale, and the
Catherine Couturier Gallery in
Houston has many others and
hosted an exhibition from April 7
to May 12 of her Looking-Glass
work. One hundred limited edi¬
tions were printed, each including
an 8"x8" print of the cover image.
To purchase one ($800), email
gallery@catherinecouturier.com
or call (713) 524-5070. A trade
edition was simultaneously pub¬
lished by Moth House Press (ISBN
978-0-9995325-0-8).

Two photographs of Alice Liddell
by Lewis Carroll, an 1858 profile
and an 1870 one of her looking
miserable in a chair, were printed
in The Guardian on March 1. The
spread was accompanying a review
of the National Portrait Gallery’s
exhibition featuring the Victorian
photographs of Julia Margaret
Cameron, C. L. Dodgson, Clemen¬
tina Hawarden, and Oscar Rej-
lander.

Rochester (NY) ’s annual Epilepsy-
Pralid gala was “Chocolate Ball
Themed” this February, featuring
a production called “Rochester’s
Adventures in Chocolate Land”
(basically a chocolate version of
AATW).

The Australian Olympic Commit¬
tee’s new CEO has the birth name
Lewis Carroll, though he goes by
Matt. “Everyone has a bit of a
chuckle,” Carroll said. “I’m always

asked, ‘Written any books today?”’
Elsewhere in Other People Named
Lewis Carroll News, on January 3,
a man named Lewis Carroll III,
whose middle name was, inevita¬
bly, “Lucky,” crashed into a tree at
Tahoe’s Heavenly Ski Resort and
died.

- m -

INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY

“Christ Church holds three dis¬
tinct collections of material relat¬
ing to Lewis Carroll, aka Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson. These col¬
lections include a wide variety of
material, from autograph letters
and a wealth of manuscripts, origi¬
nal photographic prints, proof
sheets and presentation copies, to
a large number of editions of the
Alice books in different languages.

. . . The collections also include an
impressive array of secondary ma¬
terial (biographies, books about
various aspects of Carroll’s work,
etc.) and are available for the use
of researchers upon application
to the Library. The whole corpus
of the Lewis Carroll collection
is currently the object of intense
study and scrutiny, being reviewed
and catalogued. This is a work in
progress. A significant part of the
Lewis Carroll collection has now
been digitized. More will follow in
due course. This project aims to
provide an enhanced experience
for viewers, allowing them to flip
the pages, zoom in, and read very
detailed descriptions.”

- K -

MOVIES & TELEVISION

In season 2, episodes one and two,
of TNT’s The Librarians, Prospero
gets out of his book into the real
world (we are delighted to see
he is played by Richard Cox, who
played the Hatter in the Joseph
Papp/Liz Swados play Alice in
Concert, filmed as Alice at the Pal¬
ace) . Even better, among the other
fictional people whom Prospero

unleashes is one whom Colonel
Baird calls the Red Queen, only
to have Jake Stone carefully cor¬
rect her that this is the Queen
of Hearts. Getting a wink at this
common mistake in a TV show was
pretty terrific!

In Adventures in Beauty Wonderland,
Japanese pop surrealist Keiichi
Tanaami crafts a 4:39-long psyche¬
delic anime “inspired by Lewis
Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, un¬
veiling an underworld of kaleido¬
scopic cosmetics.” You can also
“Enter wonDiorland with new Dior
Addict fragrance fashion film
starring Russian model Sasha
Luss.” The new perfume is pro¬
moted as “a journey into fantasy
world, an initiation to sensations
and utter freedom. Filmmaker
Harmony Korine and photogra¬
pher Ryan McGinley have por¬
trayed an Alice in Perfumeland—a
free and sexy heroine with adven¬
turous nature.” In fact, she enters
“WonDiorLand” through a look¬
ing-glass, but that’s a minor quib¬
ble.

Sag

MUSIC

David Del Tredici’s Child Alice,

Part One of which— “In Memory
of a Summer Day”—won the Pu¬
litzer in Music for 1980, has not
been previously recorded. His
large corpus of Alice works is well
known, and one, Final Alice, en¬
gendered a best-selling recording
by the Chicago Symphony on a
1981 LP. We can now rejoice: The
Boston Modern Orchestra Project
has released a complete recording
of Child Alice on a 2-CD set. Worry
not, music lovers, this two-hour-
plus composition for soprano and
orchestra, although constantly
shifting key and based entirely on
just two themes, is sweetly melodic,
earning the label neo-Roman tic.
Opera News noted “the orgiastic
overabundance of Del Tredici’s
Mahlerian sonorities.”

The rapper Little Simz released
Stillness in Wonderland in late 2016,
a concept album inspired by Alice
in Wonderland. “The conceit is the
biggest problem,” writes Katherine
St. Asaph in her Pitchfork review,
“there’s a limit to how many takes
can be drawn from a book of Vic¬
torian math jokes and accompany¬
ing film of Disneyfied drugginess.
Alice is also more suited to satire
or farce—Carroll’s original idea—
than serious subjects or earnest
introspection, the two modes of
this album.” The album contains
several interludes with advice from
the Cheshire Cat to “always follow
the white rabbit,” and a track
called “King of Hearts” with the
lyric “Took the CH off Chip and I
put it on Alice / Hit the chalice,
now I’m in wonderland.”

- m -

PERFORMING ARTS

Children’s Theatre Association of
San Francisco presented Alice in
Wonderland on Saturdays, February
3-March 3 at the Cowell Theater
in the Fort Mason Center for Arts
and Culture. Also at Fort Mason,
the Mark Foehringer Dance Proj¬
ect presented an Alice in Wonder¬
land for kids April 7-8 and 14-15;
a cast of eight dancers, live musi¬
cians, and puppets did the honors.

Peter and Alice, the 2013 play by
John Logan, premiered in London
with Judy Dench as Alice Liddell
and Ben Whishaw as Peter Llewe¬
lyn Davies. It was performed in
Minneapolis by the Candid The¬
ater Company from February 10
through March 4. Logan’s script is
available in paperback from
Oberon Modern Plays.

Alice + Steampunk + Bohemian
Rhapsody + Dance = Alice in Steam-
punk Wonderland. First choreo¬
graphed by the Midwest Regional
Ballet in 2013, the production
(featuring the music of Queen)
returned to Pittsburg, Kansas, and
Joplin, Missouri, last September.
Reports the Joplin Globe, “The lyrics

help add context to the story by
giving additional meaning to the
traditional story of ‘Alice’ . . .
‘You’re My Best Friend’ enhances
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum,
‘The Show Must Go On’ highlights
a circus and makes a metaphor
with growing up, and ‘Under Pres¬
sure’ underlines the stress felt by
the White Rabbit.”

BarnDoor Productions staged
Daniel Rover Singer’s A Perfect
Likeness (KL 90:2) in Perth, On¬
tario, last October 13-27. The play
imagines a meeting of Dickens
and Dodgson.

Baltimore Center Stage had a
high-wire production called
Lookingglass Alice in November-
December. “It incorporates gravity-
defying aerobatics into the already
imaginatively quirky world.”

A “dark and disturbing new live-
action cartoon called Jabberwockf
was staged in Edmonton, Alberta,
on November 26 by The Old Trout
Puppet Workshop. The produc¬
tion, according to the Globe &
Mail, was “about toxic masculinity
of all things, how the messages
boys receive about masculinity
when they are young inhibit their
ability to be happy as men.”

The bawdy Rust Belt Theater in
Youngstown, Ohio, presented a
very adult Alice: A Curious Musical
in May.

- is -

THINGS

The Twisted Path Distillery and
Dockl8 Cocktail Lab in Milwaukee
offers a cocktail called “Eat Me
Drink Me.” “Made with Twisted
Path dark rum, house-made
banana vermouth, house-made
nocino (green walnut liqueur) and
Bittercube Cherry Bark Vanilla
bitters, it drinks like a Manhattan
while mimicking elements of the
flavor description of the elixir in
Lewis Carroll’s novel, described as
tasting of ‘cherry tart, custard, and
toffee.’”

6 5

M-

TRetor Ros^zryhzld @ in puzzRland"

CHRIS MORGAN

M-

M I

r lice in Puzzleland” was one of many
themes used by puzzle editor Hector
LRosenfeld (1858-1935) in his popular
Ladies’ Home Journal puzzle column that ran in the
early twentieth century. He was a founder of the Rid-
dler’s Club, the New York City branch of the National
Puzzlers’ League, and was known nationally as a pro¬
fessional puzzle maker and composer of thousands of
charades, rebuses, crossword puzzles, and anagrams
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The use of the Alice theme reflects the wide¬
spread popularity of Carroll’s characters in America
at the turn of the twentieth century, and their charm¬
ing repurposing to a new format. (At the time, the
Journal also hired Alice illustrator Peter Newell to write
articles about how to sew sofa pillows and bed quilts
with Alice-themed designs.) Rosenfeld was adept at
preserving the personas of Carroll’s characters, and

was also a talented puzzle designer—his can be chal¬
lenging indeed. He was an intimate friend of Sam
Loyd, the most famous puzzle maker of the nine¬
teenth century. (Interestingly, Loyd also ran a puzzle
column, “Sam Loyd’s Own Puzzle Page,” in Woman’s
Home Companion from 1903 through 1911, but very
rarely used Carroll’s characters as themes.)

We present one of Rosenfeld’s columns here.
Since the columns were a connected series of chap¬
ters, each begins with comments on and answers to
the previous column’s puzzles. In this November 1905
entry, Alice is shown under a tree trying to solve the
puzzle of a mysterious sign with letters on it, which
must be cut into three pieces and reassembled to
form a perfect square with a readable message. That
puzzle is posed in the bottom-left paragraph of the
page. We invite readers to try their hands at this tricky
challenge! (Answers below.)

L ^_ _ I HltT

I V+.TC

•7 \ . J jy I - ■ 1

Mok Secjulfcur" by Wiley Miller, OuKe 4, Zoi

wA:_«ifC7 r

A Jl S®

■rtyx. it

[HIE a ^ o - IK it 5 - ti»tl -J-

= *ai| - m-- 9 [U| i|Uira

= MmH □.¥■□] 3 —|- -j^ (tcJl ~ flFJag

; a^wiifiin ir|loiraij

.. . . . .... a iFm

d=!hLd x3u{j 'Aii| jO frainioj xhm ifind >L|i u| nX\f aqj_

i| ipuiqp am Cii iMrai aty_

^inon j:,*. uf R*WI

: L Uf|ihiC« *00. act]! 0 3d=;nrtJi x t -j\ Omi\ *t|i jr* xiuediI 41|i

S 9 |zzn c | laqiuaAOjsj ai|j oj siaMsuy

The Ladies' Home Journal for November 1905

NUMBF.R III
F T E R Alice
had show n
Humpty-
Dumpty, Tweedle¬
dum and Tweedle-
dee how easily they
could reach their
bases without crossing each other’s path the
twins objected to the way as being too round¬
about. Hut Humpty-Dumpty turned to them
and said haughtily: “ I told you so. Never
cross my path again,” whereupon Tweedle¬
dum and Tweedle-dee fell upon each other’s
necks and sobbed themselves off the field.
When they had disappeared Humpty-Dumpty
said to Alice: “I knew it was that way, but I
thought it was this way — like the simple
puzzle of the two E’s — hence the saying,
'too easy.’ ”

Taking his slate he drew two capital E’s,
back to back. “ This,” pointing to one, 44 is
the way the E looked before it went through
the looking-glass, and the other is after.
Now, take my pencil and connect 1 with 1,
2 with 2 and 3 with 3. without crossing a line,
while I fetch you another charade,” and he
disappeared.

While Alice was sitting down to work out
the puzzle Peter suddenly asked her:
44 By-the-way, have you a colledgucation? ”

44 I don’t believe I know what that word
means,” said Alice with a puzzled look.

44 Why, that’s a lap-over word. We often
use ’em when we want to save syllables.”

14 Oh, I see now. You mean 4 college edu¬
cation.’ No, I haven’t had one, but Fraulein,
our governess, has had one and she’s going to
give it to me. Hut why do you ask? ”

44 Because I want to take you to our school
and want to know what class to begin with.”

44 Let’s begin with the kindergarten and
work our way up.”

44 Very well. If you’ll excuse me I’ll go to
find out if visitors are admitted today. If
you get lonesome while I’m away you may
study out the sign on this tree. In order to
read it you must divide it into three pieces
that can be fitted together to form a perfect
square. Then the letters will appear in
their proper order. Of course, I suppose
you know what a square is?”

Alice in Puzzleland

By Hector Rosenfeld

Drawings by Thomas Mcllvaine

Alice was inclined to take offense at the
question, but she thought better of it, though
there was a slight sneer on her lips as she
said: 44 A square is a figure of four equal sides
and all right angles.”

44 Is that so?” asked Peter in surprise.
“I thought it was just something that you
couldn’t make a circle of.”

Alice was very fond of design puzzles, and
she laid aside her E’s while she worked it
out. It was not long before she deciphered the
sign and had her answer
and square ready for Peter
when he returned.

44 I declare, I never saw
such remarkability,” said
Peter with wide-open eyes.

But Alice only smiled
modestly and busied her¬
self with the Humpty-
Dumpty puzzle.

This being visitors’ day
Peter conducted Alice to
the schoolhouse which was
close by. They had not
gone very far before a flut¬
tering of wings overhead
startled Alice ami she saw
an airshipalight from which
stepped her friend the
Hatter. When he saw her
he made a profound bow,
after which he exclaimed:

44 I am not mad, but soon
shall be if six times six are
thirty-three. He who sees
his opportunity and seizes
it is like the wind. He sees
his, and he ceases not,
therefore can I not find the
answer.”

44 To what are you seek in
asked Alice interestedly.

44 I find that with the wind behind me I can
fly five miles in three minutes, but with the
wind against me but three miles in five min¬
utes. Now, if the wind should cease, how far
could I travel between breakfast and noon?”

4 4 How early do you breakfast?” asked Alice.

44 Sometimes early, sometimes late, but
always at half-past seven.”

Alice told him she would try to find the
answer and send it to him, at which he hopped
into his airship and flew away shouting:

“ If six times six were thirty-three

What would happen to eleven times three? "

When Alice and Peter arrived at the school-
house they were met by Humpty-Dumpty,

who handed Alice the following charade, say¬
ing that he guessed the answer was Captain
Kidd, because he was the only pirate he knew :

" If a birdie meet a birdie

Coming through the LAST,

Should a birdie most unyielding
To its FIRST hold fast?

" The WHOLE a pirate bold was he,

Who oft commandments broke:

Lord help the ships he caught at sea —
They found it was no joke.”

As they were about to
enter the school a troop of
children swarmed out, it
being the hour for recess.
The teacher, however, met
the visitors at the gate and
told Peter to show Alice
about until after recess,
when she would join them.

The first room they
entered was the arithmetic
class, and the blackboard

an answer

immediately attracted Alice. It bore ex¬
amples in 44 Pictorial Arithmetic.”

44 What kind of arithmetic is that?” asked
Humpty-Dumpty.

44 You use words instead of figures,” ex¬
plained Alice. 44 You add and subtract them
just like numbers until you get the answer.
See,” she said, pointing to the board, 44 there’s
one example done to show how. Boat, plus
Woman (equals B-o-a-t-
w-o-m-a-n), minus Man
(leaves B-o-a-t-w-o), minus
Boa, leaves T-W-O, which
is the answer. Oh, that’s
fine,” delightedly ex¬
claimed Alice. 44 Let’s try
the others.” and she sat
down immediately, full of
excitement, to work out
the other three examples.
Humpty-Dumpty, who
hadn’t paid the slightest
attention to Alice’s expla¬
nation, had meantime
curled himself up on one of
the benches and was now
fast asleep, while Peter with
a broad grin was painting
little puzzle pictures all
over his bald spots.

TO BE CONTINUED

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Full text of "Knight Letter No. 100"

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